I wrote in a previous post about what life was like growing up in Newtown, Connecticut. It truly is a picturesque New England town. But what might be surprising is that within that town sat a gem. A hundred acres of wooded rolling hills within which sat an inner campus of professionally landscaped and meticulously manicured grounds crowned with stately and handsome brick buildings in a colonial architectural style. These were the grounds of Fairfield Hills Hospital, a state run mental health facility located in Newtown, about 3 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School. The hospital closed its doors in 1995.
To tell the tale of Fairfield Hills Hospital is to tell a tale of two nations. The first, a new economic and financial superpower, a country with an increasingly aspirational middle class toiling in a system that rewarded their hard work with a level of wealth and a standard of living never seen before in human history. The second, a country struggling to balance the opposing pressures of a demographic bubble and crushing debt levels the likes of which have also never been seen in human history. Continue reading “This is What Remains of a Shattered Mental Health System in Newtown. Could it Have Helped Adam Lanza?”
