Before Naomi Ruth Cohen committed suicide, she had a secure job, a stable relationship and a place of her own in Evanston.

“She was going through what in many ways seemed to be one of the best periods of her life,” said her father, Lawrence Cohen.

But even in the good times, bipolar disorder haunted her.

Like 40 percent of people suffering from the disorder, Naomi Cohen committed suicide in May 2000, at age 32, leaving her devastated family members searching for ways to handle their grief.

Though they respected the decision of many suicide victims’ families to keep quiet, Lawrence Cohen and his wife, Marilyn, decided to speak out about their daughter’s death.

“If you don’t talk about it, then you’re not making something good out of the whole thing,” Lawrence Cohen said. “It was cathartic, in a way, to bring it out and talk about it. For us, it was a way of alleviating the grief.”

The Cohens, who have lived in Evanston since the early 1960s, transformed their grief into action, starting a mental-health conference in Evanston aimed at reducing the stigma of mental illness. The third annual conference, to be held June 6, 2004, is expected to draw about 350 people from the North Shore mental-health community, Lawrence Cohen said.

He said the program promotes discussion between health professionals and the public about a topic that is often brushed under the rug.

“Stigma comes about because people don’t understand what mental illness is,” he said. “It’s not something you should be ashamed of, and it’s not something you should be embarrassed to talk about.”

‘A CROSS-SECTION COMMUNITY’

Because of the city’s diversity and commitment to social services, Cohen said Evanston is a good location for a mental-health conference.

“Evanston is a cross-section community,” he said. “It’s a natural place to be a leader in this kind of thing.”

Compared to other communities its size, Evanston has a wealth of service organizations, said Harvey Saver, Evanston’s assistant director of mental-health services.

“Historically, Evanston has been a community that has a very broad social conscience,” he said, “and (residents have) expected that there would be social services for people who are in need.”

Evanston offers about 20 city-funded mental-health organizations and many other private associations. These also service problems such as substance abuse and developmental disabilities, which can be linked to mental health.

But Saver and Alisa Dean, a board member of the Mental Health Association of the North Shore, said the city experiences unique problems.

Because Evanston is “culturally rich,” Dean said it is often hard to reach out to ethnic minority groups that are systematically excluded because of language differences.

“We have a very diverse group of people that all probably have some mental illness within their populations but are not as aware of the services that are offered,” she said.

And Evanston is economically diverse compared with neighboring communities, Saver said.

Foundations that view Evanston as a suburb often hesitate to offer support, Saver said.

“(Agencies) look at Evanston as the North Shore — wealthy,” Saver said. “So it’s difficult for organizations to get funding from agencies.”

FINANCIAL CUTBACKS

Evanston’s mental-health funding has been cut in the last several years, which has increased problems for the city’s services.

The Mental Health Department received about $800,000 in city funds in 2003 — a 28 percent decrease from 2002, Saver said. The department has undergone two rounds of major cuts in the past several years, Saver said.

The city’s funds only make up about 8 percent of resources for the organizations, which also receive government grants. But a city budget cut still can affect programming, Saver said.

Realizing Evanston’s tight budget, some organizations have stopped asking for the city’s financial support entirely. This year, Saver said, six programs refrained from requesting funds.

When the city’s wallet gets lighter, organizations look to the state for cash. But according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Illinois ranked below the national average in per-capita funds for to mental-health services in 2001, forcing some groups to cut whole programs instead of tightening spending.

“Most of (the organizations) are already at bone,” Saver said. “They’re not cutting fat.”

AN ANSWER IN EDUCATION

Even if the Evanston and Illinois funds fall short of accommodating Evanston’s growing mental-health needs, Lawrence Cohen said there is always an answer in education.

In partnership with the Mental Health Association of the North Shore, Cohen helped fund and organize an essay contest in Evanston high schools that challenged students to identify their individual mental-health concerns.

“We thought that (education) was the biggest need that came out of our daughter’s death,” Cohen said. “It was to try to make life easier for people who have these problems.”

Because of increased press that mental health has received in recent years, Cohen said the stigma is disappearing. And in an ideal world, he said, he and his wife’s solution to reducing stigmas would be imitated nationwide.

“The stigma has lessened because there is more education going on,” Cohen said. “It’s a small step in a long road. But the advancements are very amazing.”

The Daily’s Jared Goldberg-Leopold contributed to this report.

Local mental-health resources:

Evanston organizations deal with a wide range of disorders. For more information check out:

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