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Frankly I don't know where we are headed, but I do know what we have accomplished since our last issue. We now have a tax identification number for City Voices, Inc., which means that we are recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a charitable corporation. We have submitted the necessary paperwork to the IRS to achieve non-profit corporate status in the months to come. We have begun sending letters to foundations to seek financial support for New York City Voices and other programs to benefit mental health consumers in New York City .

We are seeking new office space in the community to facilitate our peer volunteer and mentorship program. We have sold over $15,000 in subscriptions to New York City Voices to help sustain this important newspaper. Our website is going through a transformation with the help of talented young people who founded a youth-focused project to help their peers cope with the harsh realities of systematized care.

A new columnist has arrived to write about mental illness in college where she will include not only her own experiences, but those of her peers who have entered college and are coping with mental illnesses (see Two Cents from the Mad Collegians on page ). Old columnists have left such as Cindy Sostchen , who founded Ward Stories about 10 years ago, our acclaimed poetry section that has appeared in almost every issue since then. Cindy has gotten married and will be living in Florida and starting a new life there with her husband. Dedicated writer and volunteer Kurt Sass has taken her place starting with this issue's Ward Stories on page two.

Will Jiang has left us after about six years of service as the master of our website and the manager of advertising due to his new full-time job and other pursuits, but he remains as a friend, a consultant and an editorial board member. Christina Bruni has left us due to other responsibilities after some years of dedicated writing and volunteering. She wrote the popular Bruni in the City columns where she shared her stories of life and adventure in the big city as a mental health consumer. Christopher Wallace , our distribution director, disappeared after returning to a life of substance abuse. He lasted for a few years and was a dedicated worker with a lot of energy, smarts and people-skills. We hope for his safe return some day. In the meantime, we are looking for suitable replacement for the individuals who have left and we give special consideration to mental health consumers.

Volunteer editors, proofreaders, clerical people and messengers have been hired, most of whom are consumers. Writers continue to submit fresh material mainly by email and we plan to have more photos and advertisements in each newspaper as we go along. Translations to Spanish are under consideration for the website and print editions to help Spanish-speaking consumers feel less isolated in the city.

Our latest events have been comedy nights as you can see from the front page photo where we encourage consumers to perform and tell us what is funny about having a mental illness. From our first comedy night, someone joked about never wanting to go to work, “because if you do, the insurance sucks! With my Medicaid I can get almost any medical treatment and almost any medication I need without a co-payment and see medical professionals as often as I want. So what if I don't have that much money—I'd rather be healthy and happy than rich !”

So what does the future hold for City Voices, Inc? I am still not sure nor do I care much. The important thing is that we have something to do, something to love and something to look forward to, whatever that may be.