Consumer Group Funding Threatened 

FY 2003 Federal Budget Action Alert!

<http://www.mhasp.org/advocacy/budget-alert-2-02.html>

President Bush's proposed Fiscal Year 2003 budget, released on February 4, would terminate funding for the three mental health consumer-run national technical assistance centers (CONTAC, the National Empowerment Center, and the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse). Also threatened are the two consumer-supporter national technical assistance centers, operated by NAMI and the National Mental Health Association, respectively.

These five centers, currently funded by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provide information and technical assistance to support the consumer self-help movement. This attack in the budget is part of a strategy to disempower not only individual consumers but the consumer movement as a whole.

With the release of this budget, the Bush administration is ignoring a growing body of evidence indicating the value of supporting and promoting mental health consumer-run self-help services. The value of self-help and peer support was recognized by both the Surgeon General in the 1999 report Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, and in a report published by the Center for Mental Health Services, entitled Consumer/ Survivor-Operated Self-Help Programs: A Technical Report.

Please help to restore funding to these vital services.

Please use or (preferably) adapt our sample letter, available on our Web site at <http://www.mhasp.org/advocacy/budget-letter-2-02.html> or a copy is being sent to the key members in another email, that was sent to our local U.S. Representative and our two Senators. Please insert your own Representative's and Senators' names and addresses. To find out the names and contact information for your U.S. Senators and Representatives, go to: <http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml> and insert your ZIP+4.

_    Mail the letter to your Congressperson's and Senators' local and D.C. offices.

_    Fax the letter to their D.C. offices.

_    E-mail the letter to their e-mail addresses.

Please do what you can today to ensure that these national technical assistance centers will be funded! Remember, this is a major assault on our national movement, as well as on individual consumers.

For more information: Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, srogers@mhasp.org or 1-800-688-4226, x 288

This mailing was funded by the Mental Health Association of SE PA Public Policy Department 215-751-1800  Fax: 215-636-6300

<www.mhasp.org>

Bush federal budget proposal has advocates up in arms

Mental Health Weekly February 11, 2002

President Bush’s proposal to eliminate funding to national mental health consumer technical assistance centers while preserving level funding overall for federal mental health programs has mental health pro-vider and consumer advocates up in arms.

And advocates, while applaud-ing a handful of funding initiatives, are strongly taking issue with the administration’s big-picture view of mental health, as reflected in its proposed spending plan for the year that begins Oct. 1.

The budget document unveiled last week reflects "a failure to appreciate the enormous needs of mental health care at a time when systems are overburdened, underfunded and failing by several measures," Ralph Ibson, vice president for governmental affairs with the National Mental Health Association (NMHA), told MHW.

"We’re concerned with the level of funding and with cuts to discretionary programs, especially in light of the [costs of the] New Freedom Initia-tive," Laurel Stine, director of federal relations with the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, added in comments to MHW.

The initiative, which Bush introduced a year ago, comprises proposals to ensure that people with mental illness and other disabilities might participate more fully in their communities, as required by the Supreme Court case, Olmstead v. LC. Bush has earmarked $15.6 million for the initiative.

President Bush’s $2.13 trillion spending plan boosts national security at the expense of other sectors of government, and returns the nation to deficit spending. Only administration priorities such as home-land security and defense will reap the benefits of the 9 percent proposed increase in federal discretionary fund-ing.

Other programs will receive only 2 percent, barely enough to keep pace with inflation, according to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).

Observed Michael M. Faenza, NMHA president and chief executive, "Against double-digit medical inflation, a flat budget actually repre-sents a cut."

For mental health programs and services, Bush is requesting current-year funding of $832 million. The administration proposes level fundingfor: The mental health block grant, $433 million; children’s mental health services, $97 million; and protection and advocacy, $32 million.

The Bush spending plan would increase by $7 million, or 17 percent, the PATH homeless formula grant, which would bring next year’s federal total for that program to $47 million. Meanwhile, the Programs of Regional and National Significance (PRNS) category would take a $7 million hit, reducing its total to $223 million.

PRNS, a discretionary category within the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), includes funding for the three national consumer-run technical centers and clearinghouses, as well as for consumer-run centers operated by NAMI and NMHA.

A separate document called the "Congressional Justification," designed to accompany the budget and offer more explanation, states: "Several programs that have been a part of (CMHS’s) portfolio will be terminated early or funded for the last year. These include the consumer and consumer-supported Technical Assistance Centers (not funded in fiscal 2002 or 2003); the Community Coalitions for the Prevention of Youth Violence (no new funding in fiscal 2002 or fiscal 2003); Community Action Grants (no new funding in fiscal 2003); and Mental Health Treatment in Non-Mental Health Settings (not funded in fiscal 2003)."

Consumer leaders upset Declaring consumer leaders shocked and upset, Joseph Rogers told MHW that cutting the money would amount to "a major setback to the consumer self-help movement," a growing network that currently includes about 1,000 self-help groups nationwide.

The proposed cut "came out of the blue, with no discussion," added Rogers, president and chief executive of the National Mental Health Consumers Self-Help Clearinghouse in Pennsylvania.

The clearinghouse, along with the National Empowerment Center in Massachusetts and the Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center (CONTAC) in West Virginia, each receive about $400,000 a year, Rogers said. The total to the five centers is about $2 million.

Rogers and other advocates point to reports by CMHS and the Surgeon General that confirm the value of consumer efforts in helping people to recover from mental illness, including improved patient outcomes and benefits in the areas of coping strategies, role models, and affordable services and education.

"We think George is a big supporter of consumer self help. He just doesn’t know it yet," said Rogers. Noting the principles of mutual support, self-help and voluntary action that the movement espouses, along with its cost-effectiveness, he added: "I can’t think of anything with more basic Republican values." Advocates said they plan to intensely lobby both the administration and Congress to get the money restored.

Community action grants 

Advocates also voiced concern about eliminating the community action grants.

These grants fund programs that strive to build consensus around adopting community programs for adults and children that highlight exemplary mental health practices.

Examples include cultural competency programs; establishing comprehensive systems of care for adults with serious mental illness; eliminating homelessness among persons dually diagnosed with mental illness and substance abuse; and helping consumers to gain proficiency in policy and planning in mental health systems.

Though relatively modest in size, the grants represent "something that advances the Olmstead effort, which would seem to be the very thing this administration is concerned about," said NMHA’s Ibson.

On a brighter note, advocates, including Andrew Sperling, NAMI’s deputy executive director for public policy, applauded the funding increase for the PATH program, which helps pay for services for homeless persons with severe mental illnesses.

The $7 million increase will help serve 163,000 more individuals, according to CMHS, and is part of the administration’s goal of refocusing federal homeless spending and ending chronic homelessness within a decade.

Here is how some other mental health-related programs and departments would fare under the administration’s proposal:

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

The administration proposes to boost NIMH funding by $105 million, to $1.359 billion. Though sizeable, that increase of 7.8 percent is far short of the nearly 14 percent increase in the overall National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget. More than half of the NIH increase is ear-marked for two of its institutes: Cancer, and Allergy and Infectious Dis-ease. Sperling said NAMI will lobby for an increase at NIMH that at least equals the average increase for the other NIH institutes.

Department of Housing and Urban Development

A $2.1 billion increase is ear-marked for HUD, bringing total spend-ing to $31.5 billion. A $10 million increase, to $251 million, is proposed for the Section 811 program, which helps build and manage housing for people with disabilities, as well as provide rental assistance. Ongoing commitments to renew funding for units in existence are expected to drain these resources.

For homeless programs, the administration is proposing a $7 million increase, to $1.13 billion, for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Program. The budget also proposes to consolidate homeless programs in the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The bad news, Sperling said, is that the president’s plan lacks money to renew expiring rent subsidies under the Shelter Plus Care program, estimated for the coming fiscal year at $95 million. The program promotes permanent supportive housing for persons with severe mental illness.

Employment and rehabilitation

As part of a plan to restructure job training and rehabilitation programs that now cut across several departments, the administration wants to consolidate some under the auspices of the Rehabilitation Services Administration within the Department of Education. The plan includes a $134 million or 5.4 percent funding hike for state grants to state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies, to a total of $2.6 billion. VR agencies that meet and exceed measures for placing persons with disabilities in employment would be rewarded under a new $30 million incentive bonus program. And the budget proposes to boost funding for the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment by $9 million, to $47 million.

To view the president’s proposed spending plan, go to:

http://www.hhs.gov/budget/docbudget.htm.

Source: Mental Health Weekly is an independent newsletter that provides the latest information and analysis in public policy, business trends and treatment issues affecting the field. To subscribe, go to http://www.bhrpress.com/bookstore/write-ups/news_mhw.htm. NYAPRS-member agencies can subscribe at the discounted (individual) rate.

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