Mr. Go is going to be on ABC and NBC

“Mr. Go is going to be on ABC and NBC. He needs to be media trained, and we have to get him talking points now,” says Jay C. . "How does this look to everyone?"

“Hold. I recently did research on this. Here’s your headline: NY psychiatric hospital bed supply is going down while the demand for them is going up.”

TLDR

• The Michelle Go Act will increase the supply of psychiatric hospital beds to get the mentally ill help and to keep our streets safer.
• We need your help in getting it passed - call, email or even better - show up to an event where your local Members of Congress are and ask them to support the bill. Like today.
• Michelle was a kind person, a good daughter and a great sister. She deserved better. Let's honor her legacy and get this done for Mr. Go.

Mr. Justin Go

I?met the second Justin in my life in the weeks before March 16, 2023 Always With Us event. ?I had caused a kerfuffle by showing up at the second planning meeting of the year and firmly requesting that we not reuse the theme from 2022. This caused a rift among the grassroots activism crowd, and everyone had pulled out of event planning. Yes, over a theme.

This left me and Justin No. 1 with the responsibility of planning an over 200+ person event with 6 weeks of runway. I was already working a 50-hour work week with two young kids. Life was about to get insane.

“Justin No. 1, we need to lock in the venue, speakers and food in that order.”?

“I’m here to help, but you take the lead.”

“Here’s a Google Sheet with 30+ speakers. Let’s go down the list and make the ask. It would be great to get a mix of authors / journalists, activists and of course, Asian hate crime victims and victims of violence who want to tell their stories. The day is about them.”

“I really want to get Brandon Tsay, the hero from the recent Monterey Park shooting. He’ll be an inspiration.”

“Can you see if anyone knows Michelle Go’s family? She grew up in the Bay Area and her story touched so many of us.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

Enter the second Justin in my life

Meeting Mr. Justin Go made everything worth it. He’s an 70-year old man born in Tennessee in a time and place that was too early for his brilliance. And he had just lost his daughter over a year ago to a schizophrenic homeless man who shoved her onto the NYC subway tracks.?

“Mr. Go, thank you for sharing your story publicly. I know you have never shared your story in-person before.”

“Wendy, I’m not sure I want to. The family is worried that people will harass us on social media.”

“Mr. Go, there’s always a possibility, but I don’t think so. You have a powerful story to tell and I think it will help heal the community, but you should not feel obligated. Do what feels right.”

“I love my Michelle. I want her legacy to live on. In the weeks after her killing, she became yet another face of anti-Asian hate. People called for rallies in her name across different cities. In retrospect, I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe that level of assertiveness is needed to change things. There was also so much media.”

“People should have respected your family’s privacy and the time you needed to tell your story.”

“We will never know what went on in that man’s mind before he pushed Michelle. I don’t know if it was anti-Asian hate or not, but now I do know that he is mentally ill, and if our system had taken people like him off the streets then Michelle would still be here.”

Here is Mr. Go’s speech. It was an honor of a lifetime to give him the podium so he could tell it.

The decline of psychiatric hospital beds everywhere?

We are facing a severe mental health crisis, and it’s been brewing way before COVID-19 but a global pandemic exacerbated it.?

It’s clear as day if you live in New York City and San Francisco. People are struggling. There is not enough housing, there is a rampant drug problem and people who are sick are not getting the help they need.

And instead of increasing the supply of psychiatric hospital beds, the supply has been slowly dwindling.

According to the NY State Controller, NY has been declining in inpatient psychiatric beds and has been in long-term decline of inpatient capacity for awhile now.

“The last decade reflects a continuation of a long-term decline in the overall number of inpatient psychiatric beds in New York – particularly in state-operated psychiatric centers – due to policy decisions made decades ago. From April 2014 to Dec. 2023, psychiatric inpatient capacity decreased by 506 beds (11.2%) in New York City and by 484 beds (9.8%) outside of the city.?

And the problem is the same in California as it is in most states.

The Michelle Go Act will increase funding for psychiatric hospital beds, which won’t solve the mental health problem but is a positive step in the right direction.

"I hope it can pass in the next 12 months."

“Wendy, it would be great if this bill could pass in the next 12 months. It is unbelievable that every politician and every lobbyist I’ve spoken to laments the intense hatred of the other side. I don’t know how anything gets done.”

“Jay is very good at what he does. He’ll know how to navigate DC. The Goldman office has also already gotten bipartisan support. That's a good sign.”

“And there’s a delegation of AAPI Congress members coming to the Bay Area in July. Let’s also make sure they know this is important to the community.”

“Lastly, let’s take a play out of the Indivisible playbook, the one written by staffers that studied how the Tea Party came to be a major political force.

Enter you. We need you to be the hero in this story.

The Tea Party deployed the following tactics to get lawmakers to take them seriously:

• They called their local congress person.
• They showed up to tell them what was important to them. Physically going matters. Virtual actions are cheap. Being in-person shows commitment.
• They were the loud, vocal minority.

We need you to be the loud, vocal minority. For many of you, this might be the first time you’ve ever called your congress person or showed up to a meeting where he or she is present. You might not even know who he or she is. That’s okay because we got you.

1. Here’s where you find your local congress members.
2. Here’s your script:

I’m a constituent of Senator / Representative ________. I’m calling to ask the Senator / Representative to support the Michelle Go Act which will increase Medicaid funding for more psychiatric hospital beds. We are facing a severe mental health crisis and need more resources to get people the help they need and so our streets can become safer.

Have questions? Just ask on this thread. Other people will probably be wondering the same thing.

Why are you doing this?

Because it’s time we exercise our voice, it’s time for us to flex and it’s time to honor Michelle Go’s legacy and to be the heroes in our own stories.

Postscript

I met Juliana Choy Sommer at an event last weekend and she was kind enough to get Mr. Go and me tickets to the San Francisco Democratic Club event on Saturday. We thought it would be a good event to galvanize local community support for the Michelle Go Act.

We tried to get Mr. Go podium time. It didn't happen. I was frustrated, but I understand it was all very last minute. We met lots of politicians - State Senator Scott Wiener, Attorney General Rob Bonta, City Attorney David Chiu. My hope is that a lot more is exchanged than a handshake.

Mr. Go and I sat and ate Chinese banquet food. I haven't had jellyfish in a long time. We talked about Michelle, her days at UCLA, the work she did sprucing up resumes of at-risk women to help them get jobs at Junior League in NYC, her M&A work at Deloitte Consulting and how she left all her assets to her younger brother.

After I dropped Mr. Go off at his car, I needed something to take the edge off, so I wandered Chinatown in search of boba. In truth, I needed something a lot harder. At the end of the night, I somehow found myself here. I have faith we'll get this done for Mr. Go.