RESEARCH WEEKLY: NIMBY-ism and Serious Mental Illness By Elizabeth Hancq “Not in my back yard,” otherwise known as NIMBY, refers to the phenomenon of residents of a community opposing a new development or a change of occupancy of an existing site. The phrase is most commonly used to reference how new sites for affordable housing, shelters or group homes are unwanted or somehow deemed inappropriate by existing community residents. “The opposition to affordable, supportive or transitional housing is usually based on the assumed characteristics of the population that will be living in the development,” according to the NIMBY definition by the non-profit, Homeless Hub. “Common arguments are that there will be increases in crime, litter, thefts, violence and that property taxes will decrease. The benefits for the residents of the development are often ignored.” NIMBY-ism is a particular issue in California, where policymakers are grappling with soaring housing prices and the concurrent rise in individuals experiencing homelessness, including those with severe mental illness. A combination of restrictive zoning laws that limit building affordable housing and strong opposition by NIMBY anti-development groups led Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom to call every Californian a NIMBY in his 2020 state of the union address. A barrier to building community-based housing and services for people with serious mental illness is negative public attitude toward people with mental illness and other residents’ desire to not live near them. New research published this month in Psychiatric Services suggests public attitudes about willingness to live near someone with mental illness can improve, however, negative perceptions are still extremely widespread among the general population. Amy Shearer and colleagues from the RAND Corporation, an international non-profit research organization, conducted two waves of surveys in 2013 and 2014 on a representative sample of California adults. Through a complex study design and statistical analysis, which involved conducting the survey in two waves, the researchers were able to understand the role of contacts with people with mental illness on public attitudes and perceptions. The research methods allow the authors to investigate how contacts with people with mental illness can change individuals’ beliefs about the dangerousness of people with mental illness and their willingness to live near a person with mental illness, while controlling for previous levels of contacts and perceptions. The authors found that an increase in contact with someone with mental illness between the first and second wave was associated with an increase in willingness to live nearby to a person with mental illness. The authors suggest that housing developers should consider strategies that include contact with individuals with mental illness to counter NIMBY opposition of community residents based on these results. The results suggest that negative attitudes toward people with mental illness are extremely prevalent among the general public, regardless of level of contact. “Approximately one-quarter of respondents at both time points believed that individuals with mental illness pose a danger to others, and these respondents were significantly more likely to be unwilling to move nearby someone with a mental illness,” the authors wrote. Missing from the authors’ explanation of the negative stigma towards people with mental illness and discussion of the survey results is any mention of the context surrounding this study. Several high-profile mass shootings took place between 2012 and 2014 by people with documented histories of mental illness, including an incident in California. While the vast majority of people with serious mental illness are not violent and are in fact more likely to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators, lack of treatment does contribute to an increased risk of violence in this population. High profile incidents such as these significantly contribute to the negative perceptions and attitudes around serious mental illness. References: Shearer, A. L. (2021, January). Contact with persons with mental illness and willingness to live next door to them: Two waves of a California survey of adults. Psychiatric Services. Elizabeth Hancq is the director of research at the Treatment Advocacy Center. View as Webpage To receive Research Weekly directly in your email inbox on a weekly basis, click here. Questions? Contact us at [email protected] Research Weekly is a summary published as a public service of the Treatment Advocacy Center and does not necessarily reflect the findings or positions of the organization or its staff. 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