In the waning days of budget negotiations, advocates are asking New York state leaders for more money for housing programs for people with significant mental health challenges.
The Bring It Home: Better Funding for Better Care campaign was created by the Association for Community Living. The campaign gathered more than 25,000 letters asking for increased funding in the state budget for housing for those with mental challenges.
Letters came from housing communities, family members, community leaders and program residents statewide and sent to state lawmakers last Wednesday. The A.C.L. is a membership organization that represents non-profits across the state that provide housing for people with serious and persistent mental health challenges. Governor Andrew Cuomo has included $10 million in funding for housing for the mentally challenged in his proposed budget, but A.C.L. Executive Director Toni Lasicki says it just isn’t enough for the almost 40,000 units of housing.
“The State Office of Mental Health licenses about 11,000 and the rest of them are unlicensed. The licensed programs haven’t gotten an increase in 10 years and the $10 million that the governor allocated is only for the unlicensed programs. Since there is something like 28,000 units, $10 million doesn’t really go that far,” says Lasicki
Lasicki says the governor is focusing on the unlicensed programs because when they were established no funding was given for more than 25 years. Lasicki says the A.C.L. has completed research showing a need for about 70,000 units of housing in New York.
“Providers are now saying that they are not going to be able to continue doing these programs for much longer unless they get a significant increase. So the fear now is that we are going to lose housing. So not only do we not have enough but we could lose what we’ve got,” says Lasicki
Susan Wiviott is Executive Director of The Bridge, a non-profit based in New York City that develops and operates housing for people with serious behavioral health issues. She says the funds ae desperately needed.
“So while our costs have increased, the amount of money that we’ve gotten from the state has been pretty flat, for probably about the last 10 years. It really hasn’t kept pace with the need. If you want to have a supporting housing system, you need to support the existing system, and make sure it is efficiently funded so that we can work with the clients and provide the kind of housing that everyone would want us to be providing,” says Wiviott
Wiviott says The Bridge has been active with organizations, including the A.C.L. Bring It Home campaign in advocating for increased funding. Lasicki says individuals who seek housing need a relatively high level of care. There are five different types of housing available to people with varying degrees of psychiatric challenges.
“There is something called a community residence there eight to 14 beds, there’s 24/7 staff. Then there’s also treat apartment, you may have two to four people in an apartment and staff might visit five days a week, whatever the need is there. Scouted site supported housing that is unlicensed and people live one or two in an apartment and staff supports them much less. Then there are large single sites that could have from 65 to 85 units, and there is a licensed version of that and an unlicensed version of that. The licensed has more support than the unlicensed,” says Lasicki
Lasicki believes that if the programs do end because of financial burdens it would be detrimental to the individuals they currently house.
“They would most likely end up in shelters, some would decompensate and end up in hospitals certain number of them would probably end up in prison or jail. So no, these people for the most part have no place else to go,” says Lasicki
Governor Cuomo’s press office did not respond to a request for comment. The budget is due April 1st.
