I'm Leah Harris, co-coordinator of the U.S. Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (USNUSP), a newly-formed network seeking to use the language, framework, and principles of international human rights to end violations against users and survivors of psychiatry and to promote voluntary and compassionate alternatives to the traditional mental health system.

John Brodie was a Vermont man who died in an encounter with Brattleboro police in 2006 after neighbors called 9-11. At 36, John was already a Princeton PhD and world-reknowned physicist widely published in scientific journals. He was also a psychiatric abuse survivor, whose non-ordinary mental states were repeatedly met with force in hospitals. On the night of his death, he was not violent or suicidal, but was behaving in a strange way -- knocking on doors at 11pm. Confused neighbors called the police, which escalated a harmless situation into a tragedy. John ran away, terrified of the police, and went into the freezing river.

John's close friend Inez Kochius, a longtime Freedom Center supporter, was working with Freedom Center to try to support and care for John in the months before this tragic event cut John's life short. Inez shares her thoughts and feelings three years afterwards, in a society that has still not learned basic lessons of kindness towards mental difference.

Inez writes "To me John did not accidentally drown, he was driven into the water -- by all of us."

Read the Rutland Herald story about John Brodie.

Go to the Freedom Center page for more about John.

(drawing below by Charlotte Clarke)

Here is some recent coverage of the latest PINAC (*Poverty Is Not A Crime) campaign against the anti-panhandling ordinance put forth by the "Downtown Northampton Business Improvement District". Freedom Center's Caty Simon is referenced in each article. It seems that we actually made a difference on this one!

Check out the Poverty Is Not A Crime campaign page here

The prestigious federal National Council on Disability report Inclusive Livable Communities for People with Psychiatric Disabilities March 17, 2008 included a section on Freedom Center that interviews Oryx!

The report says The Freedom Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, is an example of a grassroots, independent program run by psychiatric survivors that receives only minimal funding, yet has developed a number of alternative programs to assist people to achieve their self-determined goals. The Freedom Center offers innovative approaches such as yoga classes and acupuncture, provides peer-run programs, helps people to find housing, and advocates for a noncoercive mental health system in which people are free to make their own choices about the kinds of treatment they want.

Read the entire report here.

The Hampshire Daily Gazette just did a 10-17-08 story on the proposed panhandling law in Northampton that Freedom Center opposes, and quotes Caty Simon from Freedom Center speaking at a recent protest and City Council meeting:

"It's clear that this legislation does, de facto, criminalize panhandling, if not in the letter of the law, then in the spirit," said Catherine Simon, reading from a prepared statement at a recent council meeting....

Simon, meanwhile, said the homeless and the poor are already the victims of economic violence.

"These homeless people are surviving the best they know how," she said. "Meanwhile, those who wish to stop panhandling do not have altruistic goals in mind - the businesses of Main Street and the politicians that support them would simply like to clear the streets for the tourist trade."

http://www.gazettenet.com/2008/10/17/panhandling-law-looms-northampton-questions-arise

Read more about the campaign here.

Caty Simon of Freedom Center is coordinating Freedom Center's involvement with the Poverty Is Not A Crime campaign, to stop the city from adopting anti-panhandling laws.

Get latest info at the Povery Is Not A Crime Blog here.

Listen to the recent WXOJ Madness Radio show on the campaign.

Read the UMASS Daily Collegian on the campaign

Read Tommy Devine's blog, with photos and videos of the protest

The Valley Advocate also recently ran a Letter to the Editor from Caty Simon

IndyMedia also covered the protest, read it here

Original Valley Advocate article about the proposed ordinance

2003 Gazette Article about Freedom Center members Satirical "Say No To Shop Owners" poster

Caty Simon 11-23-08 Letter to the Springfield Republican newspaper on MassLive.com

ABC local news coverage 11-23-08

local blogger coverage, including video and Caty Simon interview

another Daily Collegian UMASS store

Here his an excerpt from some of the educational work Caty is doing for this campaign: