Don't cut our budget

In the late nineties, early 2000's I worried a lot about hospital bed availability. My mom was constantly in need of one, and it seems that she was always able to find a place just for a night. I never really worried that they take her in; she was always dripping blood by the time it came to that, but I always knew they would release her before anything good could come of that visit. She was homeless and unable to pay anything, and so she would usually just stay overnight. She was never stable when she left.

And now more states are cutting mental health funding so there will be less places for people like her to go. "Budgets for mental health services in some 30 states were slashed an average of almost $19 million in 2009 and more than $24 million in 2010." That's hundreds of beds gone, nurses out of work, and mentally ill people still out on the streets with no where to go to get stabilized.

I don't know what's happening with cuts in our area, but I'm sure it's a lot different than it was. Just look at all the buzz in Texas about cutting their mental health services, again. Lots of states are following that trend, even after the tragedy in Arizona brought mental illness back into the light.

Where do the acutely mentally ill go when they're released prematurely or can't get in to treatment? They go back to families who can't handle them, back to suffering in silence, and often back to the streets.

That's where my mom would go. Back out to the streets or into housing my family paid for, when she could tolerate housing. Luckily, we had the resources to help her. But what about people without resources? Who've alienated their families, or have no family? Without the help of the government, these people end up homeless, in jail, or dead.

So go ahead and cut the mental health budgets. See what happens. Don't say I didn't warn you.