De Blasio Unveils $850 Million Mental Health Roadmap
It is no doubt that mental illness is a result of many of the shootings that have occurred across the United States; although, the proportion of how much these attacks are caused by mental health disorders and how much is not is cause for debate, it is never ruled out that mental illness is part of the cause to one extent or the other.
Generally, mental illness is a condition that impacts a person’s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function properly. This can be due to depression, paranoia, anger or an outright loss of rational thinking.
In view of this, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced new mental health initiatives for New York City. According to Politico, these new initiatives “unveiled the city’s mental health roadmap, a mix of new policies, increased funding and aspirational goals that, if successfully implemented, will represent a radical change in how New York City diagnoses and responds to mental illness.”
Bill de Blasio with his wife, Chirlane McCray at his side at the at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in East Harlem said “We know the status quo regarding mental health is absolutely unacceptable,” de Blasio said. “The status quo doesn’t even let us talk about the problem let alone get people the help they need. Today, we begin a process, and it will take years because this isn’t easy. … But we will address this problem.”
The city will “move to create 15,000 new housing units for homeless New Yorkers,” as well as plan “to provide mental health first aid training to 250,000 people over the next five years, beginning with city employees, including police, firefighters and correction officers.” In addition, de Blasio “proposes hiring about a dozen psychiatrists, and approximately 400 recently graduated clinicians at the masters and doctoral levels, to work in substance abuse programs, mental health clinics and primary care practices in underserved neighborhoods.”
The city will spend roughly $850 million over the next four years to improve its mental health services. In addition to this, $305 million will be used for new spending on behavioral health.