Mayor takes aim at mental health stigma in ‘State of the City’ speech

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Palo Alto Mayor Greer Stone used his brightest spotlight, the “State of the City” address, to attack the stigma surrounding mental health treatment and reassert his commitment to expand programs that advance youth well-being.

In a March 20 speech that ranged from cheerful and optimistic to personal and vulnerable, Stone highlighted the council’s priorities for the coming year, recapped Palo Alto’s recent achievements on housing, touted the city’s reputation as a global leader on climate change and pledged to focus more on mental health — both as a council member and as an individual.

Stone, a teacher, began his tenure as mayor in January with an announcement that he would be forming a task force composed of teachers, students, mental health professionals from Stanford University and local nonprofits, city officials and school board staff to address a problem that he characterized during his address as a pandemic “more insidious than COVID.”

“I myself lost a friend to suicide and that experience changed me, like it does too many people who have to suffer through such unspeakable pain,” Stone told an audience of about 80 people at the Palo Alto Art Center.

He expounded on these efforts during his speech and recalled Palo Alto’s past struggles to address youth mental health in the wake of teenage suicides. The isolation that many people have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic only made the problem worse, he said.

Stone also acknowledged that he has been neglecting his own mental health for too long. He said depression runs in his family but rather than confronting it, he has been distracting himself with work or physical exercise. To change that, he said he is about to start having regular sessions with a therapist.

“We all need someone to talk to; there’s no shame in it,” Stone said. “We must normalize it as a city. We can and must do more. That time is now.”

Stone’s words struck a chord with Maddie Park, a ninth-grade student at Castilleja School who became more aware of mental health challenges last year, when she participated in a school club devoted to body positivity. She then joined the Palo Alto Youth Council and, upon hearing of Stone’s new task force, reached out to see if she could join, Park told the Weekly after the speech.

Park said she would like to do her part to shift the community mindset around mental health. Many of her classmates have struggled with mental health, she said, but the stigma that Stone had described around discussing the subject is real.

“I realized I actually didn’t have too many conversations around mental health with my friends or my classmates,” Park said. “It’s really a rare conversation.”

She is hoping to change that. Park is one of three students on the new task force, which also includes members from Palo Alto and Gunn high schools. One of the group’s early objectives, she said, is to widely distribute a mental health first-aid kit that will raise awareness for parents on how to detect and address mental health issues.

In addition to his focus on mental health, Stone used his flagship address to recap the city’s progress on its three other priorities: housing, climate change and economic development.  While the city has yet to win state approval for its new Housing Element, Stone said there are currently about 1,118 housing units in the city’s pipeline, which includes 517 that are designated as affordable housing.

What the city is facing, he said, is not a “housing crisis” but an “affordability crisis.” The city has historically produced more than its share of housing at the market level. A critical challenge is finding the resources to build below-market rate units and to protect residents who face housing insecurity. Housing, he said, “transcends mere shelter.”

“It forms the bedrock upon which individuals and families construct their lives,” he said. “Yet for far too many Palo Alto residents the aspiration of secure and affordable housing remains elusive.”

Stone, himself a renter, cited the city’s recent actions to protect tenants from displacement. These include expanding the city’s laws pertaining to eviction protection and setting a limit on security deposits that landlords can charge tenants. He also said that he will be advocating for a new initiative: a moratorium on evictions of families who have school-aged children during the academic year.

“As we witness the fruition of our reforms, I’m optimistic that our future plans will continue to propel positive development, fostering a community where affordable housing abounds,” Stone said.

Stone also recapped the city’s recent progress — as well as its ambitious plans — on climate change, which include a target of carbon neutrality by 2030. The Palo Alto Utilities Department has recently launched a citywide upgrade of the electric grid to facilitate widespread conversion of residents and businesses from natural gas and to electricity. And the council launched a program to assist people with installations of heat pump water heaters last year.

Palo Alto’s example, he noted, can nudge others to take similar actions.

“If we can inspire enough cities and nations to fervently tackle these challenges and demonstrate that such action is achievable in our small corner of the world, then we can leave behind a legacy of clean air, pristine waters and a thriving planet for posterity,” Stone said.

He was similarly optimistic about the challenges of sprucing up and revitalizing the city’s two main commercial districts, University Avenue and California Avenue. Even though the city’s economy has largely rebounded since the pandemic, with sales tax revenues now back to pre-COVID levels, the recovery has been uneven. Retailers have been hit hard not just by competition from e-commerce but also from the shift in work habits, with fewer daytime people now commuting to the city.

As part of its economic development effort, the city is now rethinking its laws and policies around retail and developing plans to enhance its commercial districts, which he said means making the streets safer, cleaner and more inviting. It also means implementing short-term measures like better signage and improved lighting on California Avenue, which the council recently converted into a car-free boulevard.

While the street remains a work in progress, Stone said he is optimistic that California Avenue will “ultimately create a third-place destination akin to those in cities like Santa Barbara and Santa Monica.”

“It’s imperative that we create a safe and welcoming environment for our community and prospective shoppers, and that just starts with the basics,” Stone said. “So let’s just clean up the streets. It’s really as basic as that.”

Editor’s note:

Help is available

Any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal can call 988, the mental health crisis hotline, to speak with a crisis counselor. In Santa Clara County, interpretation is available in 200 languages. Spanish speakers can also call 888-628-9454.

People can reach trained counselors at Crisis Text Line by texting RENEW to 741741.