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Mental Health Advocates Back Budget Proposals That Reinvest State Hospital, Medicaid Savings To Grow Community Supports

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������ Albany, NY�������������������������������� January 28, 2014

Contact: Harvey Rosenthal, ����������, 518-527-0564; Briana Gilmore 8060-462-0078

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�������������� Over 600 ����������ers with psychiatric disabilities and community mental health providers braved the bitter Albany weather today to urge state legislators to support what they called one of the largest single increases in community based mental health services in state history.

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�������������� This year’s Executive Budget proposes to infuse local service systems with over $200 million of community based treatment, rehabilitation, housing and crisis, peer and family support services. Additional funds will also be available to stabilize inpatient psychiatric capacity in local hospitals.

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�������������� A majority of the funds are derived from state savings achieved via reductions in the use of state and Medicaid hospitals. The advocates rallied in the cold outside the Capital to hail this reversal of past practices that took savings out of the systems and that saw hospital beds close without appropriate increases in community capacity. Their rally cry was “Reinvest in my Recovery!”

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�������������� “We’ve come out today to voice our strong support for the budget’s commitment to move public healthcare dollars to where they’re needed the most by investing in more robust and responsive community based systems of care,” said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the ���������� Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (����������), the organization that planned the rally.��

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�������������� The advocates lauded the budget’s plan to transfer $25 million in state psychiatric hospital resources associated with an expected reduction in upwards of 400 inpatient beds. “Governor Cuomo’s plan expands community services by both preserving and redeploying state jobs and by reinvesting savings to expand local nonprofit capacity,” said Rosenthal.

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�������������� The state and additional nonprofit workers associated with this initiative will work in an array of settings that were identified by regional planning bodies that are expected to include urgent care walk in centers, mobile engagement teams, crisis beds, supported housing, peer and family supports, suicide prevention, forensic diversion and transportation.����

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�������������� The budget redirects $120 million in Medicaid funding to ramp up local community recovery services in advance of plans to integrate behavioral health and medical care and to turn it over to the coordination of managed care plans in 2015, in keeping with the Governor’s Medicaid Redesign plan.

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�������������� $30 million of these funds will be used to expand community rehabilitation, employment, family and peer supports and transportation services through New York’s pioneering use of new federal Medicaid flexibility provisions.

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�������������� The advocates viewed the proposals as a multiple win for ����������ers.

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�������������� “These community investments will maximize the use of public mental health service dollars to help fill the cracks and modernize our community systems. At the same time, it helps ���������� to meet its legal obligation to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated community settings,” said Maura Kelley, executive director of Buffalo’s Mental Health Peer Connection and ���������� co-President.

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�������������� The budget adds another $20 million of Medicaid Redesign funds ($105 million more over the next 2 years) for new supportive housing beds for repeat users of costly local hospital services, and includes a long sought increase to keep up with ever rising housing costs in downstate areas.

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“Stable housing provides the foundation for recovery,” said Steve Coe, executive director of Community Access and ���������� co-President. “This budget takes bold steps to grow new housing units while stabilizing existing supported apartment arrangements.”

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The budget also provides community housing and supports for over 2,500 individuals who currently reside in state psychiatric hospitals and adult and nursing homes, over the next 2 years.

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�������������� By doing so, it ends a decade of broken promises to adult home residents with psychiatric disabilities, in compliance with a court settlement that had been stalemated for the past 3 years.

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�������������� “Governor Cuomo is bringing long sought justice to our community,” said Geoff Lieberman, executive director of CIAD, an advocacy group comprised of adult home residents. “We hope to see community housing offered to thousands of more residents who await the realization of their long held dreams.”

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�������������� The advocates continued their call for a long deferred Cost of Living increase for nonprofit workers and for increases in NYC based housing for homeless individuals.

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�������������� They came in buses and cars from communities across ����������, including Long Island, ���������� City, Western and Central ����������, the Southern Tier and North Country, the Hudson River valley and Westchester County.

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�������������� “There is very strong support for these historic advances from every corner of the state,” said ���������� Public Policy Director Briana Gilmore, who held late fall regional forums in Hempstead, Brooklyn, White Plains, Newburgh, Saranac Lake, Syracuse, Batavia and Binghamton.

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2014-15 Executive Budget Proposal Highlights

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Office of Mental Health

�������������� $25 million���������������� Reinvestment of state hospital resources into community

�������������� $6.5 million�������������� Downstate supported housing rent increase

�������������� $40 million���������������� Community housing, supports for adult, nursing home residents

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�������������� $71.5 million

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Department of Health Medicaid Reinvestment

• $20 million to help managed care plans, health homes and providers prepare for the move to managed care integration
• $15 million for efforts to integrate behavioral and physical health
• $40 million for a targeted Vital Access Provider (VAP) program
• $5 million to establish clinical care in OASAS residential settings
• $10 million for enhanced coordinated care for highest need individuals
• $30 million to ramp up community recovery service capacity in advance of the 2015 move to integrated, managed ‘Health and Recovery Plan’ initiative

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�������������� $120 million

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Medicaid Redesign Housing Investments

• $18.4 million increase in supportive housing (with another $85 million in 2015-16)

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