Two years later, a mentalhealth promise still unkept
In 2015, the Bernalillo County Commission approved a socalled “behavioral health tax” with a promise the tax would help get mentally ill homeless people off the streets and into programs that would help them lead more productive lives.
Two years and $40 million later, that promise has gone unfulfilled.
The one-eighth of 1 percent gross receipts tax increase that took effect in July 2015 has raised roughly $37.8 million to date, but you’d be hard pressed to see any appreciable decrease in the number of mentally ill homeless people setting up illegal camp sites, begging at street corners or approaching shoppers in parking lots.
When commissioners were touting the tax increase in 2014, the Journal and others warned what was likely to happen if taxpayers handed the county an extra $17 million annually without a well-researched and carefully enacted plan for addressing mental illness and homelessness: The money would instead be used to back-fill existing programs, thus freeing up cash that would have been spent there for other county needs and wants.
And here we are.
The cornerstone that was supposed to address the intractable problem of homeless people with mental health and/or drug addiction problems was a Crisis Response Center — a place where police officers could take individuals with mental health or addiction issues who were committing petty crimes or creating public disturbances. Instead of jail or a hospital, the public was promised, these individuals would be guided to community programs and services that could help them.
So far, the envisioned Crisis Response Center remains just that — a vision. So where has some of the $37.8 million gone?
$3 million for PB&J Family Services and seven other organizations to combat adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse and neglect.
$1.3 million to get released inmates with mental illness or other problems places to live.
$1 million for two-person “mobile crisis teams” to respond to top-priority 911 calls involving nonviolent individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis. (Still in planning stages.)
$1.3 million for a Downtown “re-entry resource center” where released inmates with mental illness or other problems can be directed to appropriate services elsewhere in the county. (A project the county spent $1.6 million on in 2009 that is still not fully functional.)
$1 million for “community engagement teams” that would help individuals with mental illness and substance abuse and their families. (Not yet functional.)
Taken as a whole, those programs do not resemble, even vaguely, a coordinated, comprehensive template for getting mentally ill homeless people off the streets or out of jail and into programs that can give them the help they need. And there’s still nothing in place to get a homeless, schizophrenic camper like James Boyd safely out of the foothills or prevent a decompensating schizophrenic like
John Hyde — who had been seeking help but was turned away from local health facilities — from allegedly shooting five people to death.
County officials say there are several challenges to creating a Crisis Response Center
— the need for a solid provider network backing it up and rules regarding licensure and reimbursement rates among them. But it’s past time to put such a center on the front burner.
So far, the “behavioral health tax” is funding an unkept promise, and that hurts more than the taxpayers — it hurts those the tax was intended to help two long years ago.