South Side mental health patients and advocates upset with Chicago’s plans to shut down several public clinics are vowing to ally with ministers and keep fighting until the city changes course.

About 65 people, including mental health patients, advocates and members of the Community Mental Health Advisory Board, protested outside of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office this morning, chanting loudly and holding signs.

“We have never had enough mental health services and now we’re going to have fewer. That’s a travesty,” says Mark Heyrman of the Mental Health Summit and an instructor on mental health issues at the University of Chicago.

The city has said it must close four clinics, all of them on the South and Southeast sides, because it was denied $1.2 million in state funding the clinics needed to keep operating.

But protesters say that shortfall is the city’s fault, because it neglected to bill the state and get reimbursed for that $1.2 million.

Lance Lewis, Daley’s assistant press secretary, came out of his office and spent about 10 minutes listening to the concerns of protesters today, nodding and at one point saying that their frustrations were “totally understandable.”

But he declined to comment on the closure plans or whether the mayor would change course.

“I will make sure that the proper people get these documents,” Lewis said after protest organizers handed him several letters addressed to Daley.

Protesters say having to travel farther if the clinics close would be a problem for many patients who don’t have cars and, because of their medical conditions, may not feel comfortable traveling to parts of the city unfamiliar to them.

“You simply can’t cut back on vital services,” says Fred Friedman, a patient at a clinic in Rogers Park not slated for closure. “It’s not just four or five clinics being shut down. It’s 50 professionals not working.”

Having fewer psychiatrists at the remaining clinics would increase their caseloads, making it harder to provide the therapy many patients need, Friedman says.

Bill Dock Walls, of the Committee for a Better Chicago, proposed several sources of money to fill the $1.2 million gap and keep the clinics open. The city has emergency reserves from the sale of the Chicago Skyway, the parking garage under Grant Park and thousands of parking meters, Walls says. And many protesters say money earmarked to restore Buckingham Fountain would be better spent on the clinics.

“Five centers to handle all the mental health needs of the city of Chicago? That’s not realistic,” says Darryl Gumm, the chairman of the Community Mental Health Advisory Board.