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���������� Note: Tomorrow’s ���������� Legislative Day will feature a strong day long advocacy program advancing our rights and recovery agenda and featuring expert presenters on our respective priorities and remarks from Governor Hochul’s lead on mental health policy Jihoon Kim, OMH Commissioner Ann Sullivan and NYS Legislative Mental Health Committee Chairs Assembly member Aileen Gunther and Senator Samra Brouk. We’ll also be holding a 12:15 pm news conference advocating for rejection and replacement of the policies of increased coercion with a broad array of innovative and effective voluntary strategies that are being launched by NYS and NYC governments.

We’ll be handing out copies of the Book to state legislators here in Albany but we’re also urging all of you to email your state legislators a copy and schedule follow-up appointments at their district offices.

You can join us via Zoom: register now at . Also you can participate via Facebook Live streaming: follow us at .  A link will be provided to folks that follow us.  Make sure to follow us ahead of time so you are alerted when the live-stream begins.

Finally, the Coalition for the Homeless’ Shelly Nortz and I gave a Capital Pressroom interview Monday emphasizing the critical need for a large expansion of ‘low threshold’ housing for unhoused individuals with mental health and addiction related needs as well as for an array of voluntary engagement and support services for at risk individuals. Listen in at .

FYI: NYC Bus Seats still available: a bus from NYC to our Albany Legislative Day will leave Fountain House at 6am tomorrow (Thursday) morning. They are located at 425 West 47th Street between 9th and 10th Ave. Call Megan Kelly at 347-834-5862 to claim your seat. Great thanks to Megan and Fountain House!

See you tomorrow! Contact us at eileenc@nyaprs.org as needed.

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���������� Members and Friends,
Thanks to each of you who’s joining this year’s fight to press for an expansion in community-based outreach, engagement and support services and to oppose proposed and possible expansions in involuntary treatment.
Outpatient Commitment/AOT
These include the Executive Budget’s proposal to

• place people on Kendra’s Law’s outpatient commitment order after the 6-month expiration period without the usual due process and some broadening of criteria for the sharing of patient information

Inpatient Commitment

• OMH has already issued guidance that hospitals can admit people involuntarily if “appear to be mentally ill” and who display an inability to meet basic living needs including food, shelter and clothing, even when there is no recent dangerous act. It also implies in one case that persons who are a “potential” danger can be involuntary committed. This appears to go beyond the standards established in both state and federal courts that require persons to be dangerous to self or others before they can be committed.’

NEWLY INTRODUCED ONEROUS LEGISLATION TODAY!

• New legislation was introduced by Staten Island Senator Savino (S.8508) that would expand capacity to involuntary hospitalize people in a psychiatric hospital who are deemed “likely to result in serious harm” due to difficulties tending to needs for food, clothing and shelter” (very broad discretion) and that would provide grounds to extend people’s involuntary psychiatric hospitalization based upon “consideration of the person’s preparedness, with appropriate and available support, to adhere to essential outpatient treatment.”

It is vital that your legislators hear your opposition to increasing involuntary outpatient and inpatient treatment authority and to, instead, detail the growing number of strategies to voluntarily engage people before and during crises.

Please use pages 5-12 to describe a continuum of these voluntary outreach, engagement, support and housing initiatives including:

• 9-8-8 Crisis Mental Health Crisis Hotline, Safe Options Support Teams, Clubhouse Expansions

• INSET peer outreach and engagement programs and hospital to community peer bridgers

• Crisis Stabilization and Respite programs,

• Mental Health/EMT First Responders and

• ‘low threshold’ Pathways Housing First beds

Please also review and advocate for investment in community mental health services, criminal justice and adult home reforms and maternal mental health legislation.

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Legislative Day Site Clarification: We are expecting between around 75-125 attendees. Please make sure that everyone comes with proof of vaccinations/booster and a mask. We will be in Convention Center Meeting Rooms 2-3, located on the right of the hallway you normally use to go to the Egg. Our marshals will be out and about to help guide folks there. We will be serving breakfast at 9:30 am and lunch at 11:30 pm.

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News Conference: We will be holding a news conference in Meeting Room 2-3 at 12:15 to 1:00 pm. See attachment for details. Zoom in at

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NYC Bus Seats Available: A bus from NYC to our Albany Legislative Day will leave Fountain House at 6am this Thursday morning. They are located at 425 West 47th Street between 9th and 10th Ave. Call Megan Kelly at 347-834-5862 to claim your seat. Great thanks to Megan and Fountain House!

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Streaming

We will be live-streaming the events from the ���������� Facebook page at .  A link will be provided to folks that follow us.  Make sure to follow us ahead of time so you are alerted when the live-stream begins.

You can also join in via Zoom: register now at

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Brief Overview of the Day

���������� BUDGET AND LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
FY 2022-23

���������� 23rd Annual Legislative Day
March 10, 2021

Meeting Rooms 2-3 Empire State Plaza
New Location for this year

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���������� 2022 State Advocacy Agenda

1. Reject Expansion of Kendra’s Law: Expand Successful Voluntary Engagement and Support Innovations

   • Support $35 million to launch 9-8-8 Mental Health Hotline

   • $2 million for 4 new local INSET peer outreach and engagement programs

   • Fund Mental Health/EMT First Responder Alternatives

   • Expand the Comprehensive Crisis Stabilization, Respite and Recovery Continuum

   • $5 million for 6 local Hospital-to-Community Transitional Peer Bridger

programs for improved hospital discharge planning and follow up

• Support $21 million for 20 Safe Options Support (SOS) Teams

• Allocate $50 million for 1,000 Pathways Housing First supportive housing beds with mobile mental health team

1. Support Funding Increases for Community Based Behavioral Health Services

   • Approve 5.4% COLA and include Health Home Care Management and OTDA Supportive Housing programs, workforce bonuses and remove the “sunset” revision to help ensure that COLAs will be included in all future budgets

   • Approve $500 million Investment in Behavioral Health Services and approve reinvestment of $111 million in Unspent Managed Care Behavioral Health Dollars

   • Re-bid MCO Contracts that Administer Behavioral Health Services Carved into Medicaid Managed Care

2. Support Housing Increase of $104 Million over 2 Years

3. Criminal Justice Reforms

   • Pass Clean Slate (S1553C/A6399C)

   • Pass Treatment not Jails (S2881B/A8524A)

4. Adult Home Residents

   • Strengthen Enforcement of Adult Home Residents’ Safety and Freedom from Abuse (A.196A/S.1576A)

   • $250,000 to fund the only Adult Home Resident Advocacy group, the Coalition for the Institutionalized, Aged and Disabled (CIAD).

5. Pass Maternal Mental Health Bills S.7865, S.7753, S.7752

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Program Schedule

 9:30 am    Breakfast Eileen Crosby, ����������

 10:00 am Welcome Comments   Harvey Rosenthal, Len Statham ����������

 10:05 am ���������� 2022-2023 Public Policy Priorities Presentations

 Expand Successful Voluntary Engagement and Support Innovations: Reject Kendra’s Law Expansion

• Support 9-8-8 Crisis Mental Health Crisis Hotline

• $2 million for 4 new local INSET peer outreach and engagement programs Ruthanne Becker, Mental Health Association of Westchester

• Mental Health/EMT First Responder Alternatives Ruth Lowenkron, CCIT-NYC; Christina Sparrock, Fountain House, CCIT-NYC

• Expand the Comprehensive Crisis Stabilization, Respite and Recovery Continuum Shannon Higbee, Recovery Options Made Easy Buffalo, NY

• $5 million for 6 local Hospital-to-Community Transitional Peer Bridger programs for improved hospital discharge planning and follow up   Harvey Rosenthal, ����������

• Support $21 million for 20 Safe Options Support (SOS) Teams Harvey

• Allocate $50 million for 1,000 Pathways Housing First supportive housing beds with mobile mental health teams Sebrina Barrett, ACL

$500 Million Investment in Community Based Behavioral Health Services

• Glenn Liebman, CEO, MHANYS

Support Housing Increase of $104 Million over 2 Years

• Sebrina Barrett, CEO, Association for Community Living

Criminal Justice Reforms

• Pass Clean Slate, TBA Center for Community Alternatives

• Pass Treatment not Jails Marco Barrrio, Urban Justice Center

Adult Home Residents Advocacy

• Strengthen Enforcement of Adult Home Residents’ Safety and Freedom from Abuse; Fund Adult Home Resident Advocacy Harvey Rosenthal, ����������

Pass Maternal Mental Health Bills

11:05 am           FEATURED SPEAKERS

• Jihoon Kim, Deputy Secretary for Human Services and Mental Hygiene

• Dr. Ann Sullivan, Commissioner, NYS Office of Mental Health

• Assembly Member Aileen Gunther, Assembly Mental Health Committee Chair

• Ernesto Porcari, Legislative Director and Counsel for Senate Mental Health Committee Chair Samra Brouk

11:45 am          LUNCH

12:15 pm  News Conference: Meeting Rooms 2-3

1:00 pm    March at the Capital

1:30 pm    Face to Face Meetings/ Zoom Calls with Legislators and/or Staff

3:00 pm    Return Home

THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP FOR RECOVERY, RIGHTS, COMMUNITY,
RACIAL EQUITY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM!