MH-CAN (the Mental Health Client Action Network) is a valuable peer-community service, which helps adults with mental illness live without crisis. Each of our part-time staff is an adult with a serious mental health diagnosis. They are uniquely capable, together with many volunteers, of responding to others with dignity and respect.

Our Drop-In Center is a refuge. It hosts over 12,000 visits annually from almost 600 mental health clients, who would otherwise have no community center.We provide safe daytime space for 48-65 homeless persons with mental illness a month.

At MH-CAN our guests can find peer counselors, healthy snacks, a phone, library, art and music supplies, and access to the Internet.

The MH-CAN Drop-In Center is at 1051 Cayuga Street (at Soquel Avenue) in Santa Cruz. The Peer Support Center is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4 days a week. During the year we solicit private donations to be open on Saturdays during rainy, cold weather.

1.       Lobbying for better physical health care for those on MediCal, through our Health Education speaker series.

2.       Collaborating with housing developers for more affordable, supportive, and independent housing.

3.       Promoting the creative writing and painting abilities of mental health clients.

4.       Making presentations on disability culture and telling our personal stories about living with an illness to community groups.

Ø      MH-CAN reduces the incidence of panhandling and loitering in the community by providing a phone, coffee, newspapers, and a resting place for people, as well as transportation to medical appointments.

Ø      People at MH-CAN demonstrate that people with a serious mental illness can work, go to school, maintain stable housing, and help their peers do the same. We know that recovery and realizing our dreams are possible.

Ø      MH-CAN reduces pressure on other community resources to give adults with mental illness the dignity, time, and respect they deserve.

Ø      MH-CAN demonstrates that people with mental illness are reliable and predictable (we never failed to be open since 1993); talented (we publish poetry, flyers, and position papers; mend computers; perform on cello, guitar, and piano); devoted to service (we volunteer with other agencies and run 8-10 peer support groups a week); and peace loving (we learn to solve problems by talking out conflicts).Our presence in Santa Cruz enriches the quality of our community, families, and individual lives.

Ø       MH-CAN advocates for individuals to get the services they want. We are a voice at the table when mental health policy in Santa Cruz County is made, and work as a partner with traditional medical and social services to make sure client needs are heard and accommodated even while budgets are being slashed. We know that adults with mental illness will (with enough information) voluntarily seek and use helpful services that work for them.

MH-CAN is grateful to local businesses for their support of MH-CAN. In
particular we appreciate Nob Hill and the Buttery for providing bread, Second Harvest for providing peanut butter, vegetables and fruit, METRO for issuing bus passes, and Ample Annie and the United Methodist Church of Santa Cruz for clothes.

We need community support for our services, both moral and monetary. While MH-CAN is funded in part by the County Board of Supervisors and Human Services Agency, we obtain special foundation and federal grants for special projects.Our operating expenses are barely covered and in the past two years we have had to eliminate all social activities, book buying, cable TV, being open on Wednesday, and participation in all regional and state mental health conferences.

Your help could be as simple as your donation of much-needed supplies like coffee and toilet paper, or good computer equipment. Send cash contributions to MH-CAN, a tax-exempt 501 3 cnon-profit in the public interest.

Suzanne Koebler, Executive Director of MH-CAN

1051 Cayuga St, Santa Cruz, CA 95062

Tel: Office - reception (831) 469-0462
Client phone: (831) 469-0479 FAX: (831) 469-9160

Website: http://www.mhcan.org