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LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES
2007 ACL BUDGET/LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES
COST OF LIVING INCREASE
FULLY FUND THE PROMISED COLA AND MAKE IT PERMANENT!
PRESERVE EXISTING RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS
REFORM EXISTING PROGRAMS
PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
Pass Mental Health Housing Wait List legislation
- A statewide mental health housing wait list is critical to planning. How do we know what to develop if we don’t know how many beds are needed, where we need them, and who needs them?
- Both the Senate and the Assembly passed this legislation in 2006 but Governor Pataki vetoed it.
- The information that is currently collected in NYS is incomplete.
- The last mental health housing needs assessment was done by OMH in 1993
- OMRDD uses a statewide wait list to determine need – OMH should too.
Create a plan to develop another 35,000 units of housing that will, once and for all, provide care for all those with serious and persistent mental illnesses who are functionally impaired and therefore need a home with supports.
- The vast majority of consumers are in the community living with family members, cared for by under-resourced not-for-profit providers, languishing in adult homes, inappropriately jailed or imprisoned, or on the streets.
- We estimate that there are approximately 70,000 people in NY who currently need housing with supports.
- These are the core group of people with a serious and persistent psychiatric disability who are functionally impaired and therefore dependent on the publicly funded mental health system.
- We believe that 70,000 is a conservative number based on sound assumptions. However, it is not an actual count, so we need a wait list!
- We have a total of 35,000 units now, including those in the pipeline, so we need approximately 35,000 more.
- De-institutionalization has become abandonment.
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