United States Department of Health and Human Services: As our country struggles through tough times there is no doubt we, as a whole nation, have had to make some compromises. One of the biggest, broadest issues our country has been facing is the recent budget cuts in numerous different categories including mental health care. Mental health care has gotten the short end of the stick in the last few years, and it has become a spiraling problem in the United States. Between 2009 and 2011 the United States witnessed some of the largest state budget cuts in history, and we are still suffering from the consequences of doing so. Where does a majority of homelessness, suicide, substance abuse and jail overcrowding stem from? If you take a closer look it will become very clear that cutting the funding for mental health research and treatment has left these mentally ill patients with very few options suitable enough for their varying conditions. Due to the lack of appropriate facilities needed to properly diagnose and treat mentally ill patients, jails are becoming overcrowded and homelessness is at an all-time high. The importance of mental health care is being put on the back burner while, instead, it needs to be a priority and that is why President Obama’s proposition to increase funding to aid the mentally ill in 2014 is extremely necessary. As states cut mental health care funding, prisons are becoming an asylum. There is a very common misconception among the general public that mentally ill individuals are extremely violent, however, this statement has proven to be very false. The unfortunate truth is that this stigma blossoms from the fact that, these days, jails have become one of the few places that will take the mentally ill patients in. As the economy dries up funding to make professional help and proper medication easily accessible, patients have become the responsibility of law enforcement. Los Angeles county sheriff, Lee Baca says that “more and more mentally ill people end up in jail when they’re not getting the help they need.” Police logs in many cities support Sheriff Baca’s statement by reporting that mental health crisis calls have increased an average of 34.5% in the last four years. As a result of funding cuts, an estimated 15 to 20 percent of inmates have a serious mental illness. Long story short: These patients should not be put in prisons and jail cells. Guards are not doctors and bars and restraints are not medicine. President Obama’s proposition to increase funding for the mentally ill is an essential stepping stone to not only provide these people with proper treatment, but also relieve a lot of problems including the overcrowding of jails. Not to mention, cut the costs substantially of the utilities used to treat these patients in the prisons. Why is it so important to keep the mentally ill out of jail cells? As individuals, somebody with a serious mental illness needs to be properly diagnosed and treated. Without doing so, the person’s condition will only escalate and it will become a dangerous cycle. From a sociological viewpoint, the funding going towards jails and prisons could be reduced significantly if we can remove the mentally ill “prisoners” and put them in a hospital where they need to be. Why are we overfilling the cells with sick people instead of keeping room for the true criminals? President Obama’s proposition to increase funding to mental health will provide patients with access to professional help and clinics and medication rather than ignoring the core issues of a mental illness and just keeping them behind bars. Homelessness is another factor that becomes a part of the “dangerous cycle” that occurs when an individual doesn’t have access to the proper facilities and treatments. Between 2009 and 2012, states cut a total of $4.35 billion in public mental health spending. What do all of these budget cuts result in? States are being forced to close a majority of their psychiatric hospitals and clinics due to lack of funding. Similarly, the clinics that still exist have become so expensive in order to compensate for the lack of funding that they are essentially inaccessible to a huge majority of lower and middle class patients. Where do adults with mental illnesses go who don’t have money for medication and therefore can’t possibly manage a household or a high stress job? If they aren’t in jail, they are most likely on the streets living as homeless individuals. Studies show that one in three homeless people have untreated mental illnesses. The National Coalition for the Homeless states that “Serious mental illnesses disrupt a person’s ability to carry out essential aspects of daily life such as self-care and household management… As a result, people with an untreated mental illness are much more likely to become homeless than the general population.” In states like Hawaii and Virginia, 60-70% of homeless people also have a mental illness. The most interesting thing about the budget cuts that left these sick people on the streets is that they have actually backfired. In the long run, it costs less to treat people appropriately than to pay for the public services that homeless people with mental illnesses use such as shelters and emergency room services. With President Obama’s proposition to provide more funding to mental health care, the nation can establish “supportive housing” and mental health services that will get people off the streets and actually save money. Supportive housing is the idea of affordable housing, medication and treatment facilities made available to people with mental illnesses. In Portland, Oregon 35 chronically homeless people with mental disabilities used roughly $42 thousand each in publicly funded resources per year. After put into a supportive housing program, the city saved $16 thousand dollars per participant. On a larger scale, New York studied ten thousand homeless individuals with mental illnesses and found that each person used $40,449 per year in publicly funded services such as emergency rooms, hospitals, prisons, shelters and incarceration. After being placed in supportive housing there was an 86% drop in the number of homeless shelter days per person. There was also a 60% drop in state hospital use and 80% drop in public hospital inpatients per day. Similarly, the rate for incarceration was cut in half. With more funding going towards mental health care, our nation can save money, save resources and give these patients a chance to be successful members of society instead of sitting on the streets without any help. I understand that money doesn’t appear out of nowhere, and when funding towards mental health care is proposed it means that other resources’ funding are cut. One could argue that pulling money out of America’s homeless shelters, emergency rooms, prisons and hospitals would be unthinkable. The mentally ill are not the only ones in hospitals and jails. What about the little kids that break their ankles at soccer practice, wouldn’t their emergency room trip suffer because there isn’t enough money? Homeless shelters put a roof over the head of thousands of people who aren’t necessarily sick, but are going through some of the hardest struggles they have ever faced in this tough economy. The wonderful thing about the proposition to increase funding to mental health care is that it would be a win-win for all of these different categories. Once a sturdy foundation is built for mentally ill patients to attain affordable housing and treatment, the nation will no longer need to put so much money into hospitals, jails and shelters for them to continue to operate successfully. In the New York study of ten thousand homeless individuals, the number of emergency room patients and shelter days dropped so significantly that, if supportive housing was put into place on a national level, those public resources would be left with an excess of funding. The money is already there for mental health care, it is just being poured into prisons and shelters and other safety nets because of the increasing number of mentally ill people using those resources. If the money that mentally ill individuals use on publicly funded resources is directed specifically to mental health care, no other resources will struggle. Instead, our nation will find the balance it has been looking for in the cases of overcrowded jails, emergency rooms and homeless shelters. Preventative treatment and care to keep the mentally ill out of shelters and jails would save the nation money. Supportive housing would help these individuals make a better life for themselves and become a contributing member of society. Lastly, support, treatment and medication will be easily accessible even for those who are in the lower class. For these reasons, President Obama’s proposition to significantly increase funding for mental health in 2014 would help the nation get back on its feet.
Sincerely,
Ashley

"NAMI - The National Alliance on Mental Illness." NAMI. National Alliance on Mental Illness, n.d. Web. 18 May 2013.
Hoffman, Piper. "More Mentally Ill Becoming Homeless Because States Won't Help." Truth-out.Org. Truthout, 06 May 2013. Web.
Mukher, Jee. "As States Cut Mental Health Care Funding, Prisons Are Becoming Asylums." ThinkProgress RSS. ThinkProgress, 07 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 May 2013.
Clarke, Toni. "Health Budget Spends on Mental Health; Cuts Medicare." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 18 May 2013.

Questions:
1. How is my organization? I combined the opposing argument and the “rebuttle,” does this work?
2. Does my work seem credible? Any grammatical mistakes, spelling errors or work cited problems?
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