Background: In preparation for a significant revenue shortfall, the Joint Ways and Means Committee of the Oregon Legislature asked state agencies to plan for budget cuts of 30 percent in the 2009-11 biennium. Under this scenario, community mental health funding for those living with severe mental illness would be slashed. Oregon cannot and should not balance the budget on the back of the state’s most vulnerable.

What Can You Do to Save Mental Health Funding?
A simple action on your part will help preserve
community mental health funding for those living with severe and moderate mental illnesses.

What should NAMI members do?

• Ways and Means Committee members need to hear from you. Attend a public hearing, make a phone call, send an email!
• Members need to hear that recovery from a mental health crisis is possible, and dollars are best spent on community services that prevent people from reaching a crisis.

Without vital community treatment resources, people will end up in the Oregon State Hospital, in jails, on the street — or worse.
The state general fund won’t realize any savings.

Here’s a partial list of proposed cuts that would:

• Eliminate nearly all outpatient mental health services for adults not covered by the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid). About 6,000 people would be dropped from treatment services offered in their communities, thrusting them into crisis.
• Eliminate 80 step-down community placements for individuals being treated at the Oregon State Hospital. Without a step-down placement, people would be forced to stay at the state hospital.
• Eliminate acute inpatient psychiatric care for 3,400 people.
• Eliminate the Community Mental Health Housing Trust Fund. Interest earned on the trust is the state’s only source of funds for building supported housing for individuals living with a mental illness.

Let Ways and Means Committee members and your legislators know……

Treatment Works. Recovery is possible.

Don’t gut our community mental health system.

Download a printable flier in PDF format.

Download a list of Ways and Means Committee members and contact information.

Download the list of proposed budget cuts that impact our community mental health system.