Fifty-one years ago,

television journalist Geraldo Rivera (joined by print reporter Jane Kurtin) used a stolen key and an inside tip to go behind the walls of the Willowbrook State School for the developmentally disabled on Staten Island, New York. His investigative report captured a story and scenes so shocking; it changed the face of mental health as we know it.

No criminal charges were filed as a result of the report, but Rivera says a greater outcome was achieved.

“Now everyone knew that the institution was no way to care for this population,” he said. “It absolutely began the end of the institutional era that had existed since Bedlam and the United Kingdom in the 19th century.”

My Mother used to yell (she was a yeller!), “You kids are going to send me to Snake Hill!” Everyone knew Snake Hill was a crazy house on a hill they built the New Jersey Turnpike around. Snake Hill is long gone but the Turnpike still has a bend that goes around – nothing mostly. Snake Hill is gone along with most of the “institutions.”

The really sad part here is, yes, we have slayed the Beast of Poorly run Institutions. But we have only succeeded in relocating the REAL problem from an institution setting to a subway car in the case of New York City. Or to a yard chair and a gun in Texas, or tent cities in most urban areas. There MUST be something in between an ‘institution’ and ‘you’re on your own, Bub!’

My grandmother would describe neighbors taking care of their own. “Before social security,” she’d say, “people depended on themselves their family and their neighbors for any help they needed. Otherwise, it was off to the Poor House with you, and no one wanted that.” Nana made it seem so do-able. Of course, she only knew hard work as a fact of life. A notion me-thinks we might have forgotten.