Americans have failed people with mental illness. Trump’s new budget will change that.

The massive closure of mental institutions (a.k.a. deinstitutionalisation) in the 1960s has been an enormous failure thanks to a flawed ideology!

In the U.S. as well as in other Western countries, way too many serious mentally ill people end up in jail or homeless instead of being treated and so on.

Bravo Trump!

"In 2018, 47 million people experienced some form of mental illness. More than 11 million of these Americans lived with mental illness of such severity that it impaired their ability to carry out normal life functions. And nearly 4 million Americans received no treatment at all. This is unacceptable. ... In the 1950s, there were more than 550,000 state psychiatric hospital beds in the United States. By 2016, this number had dropped to 37,679. Instead of receiving care, the sick are locked behind bars, often after encounters with police officers ill equipped to manage these encounters effectively. There are more than 392,000 incarcerated individuals with serious mental illness. That means there are 10 times more individuals with serious mental illnesses in prison beds than in state psychiatric hospital beds. ... There are at least 111,122 individuals with serious mental illness who are homeless, including 52,180 who have no form of shelter. ... And the administration has already taken action. Last year’s funding bill provided $3.9 billion for mental health programs, a $328 million increase."

Americans have failed people with mental illness. Trump’s new budget will change that. - The Washington Post: We must end the disgraceful way people with serious mental illness are treated.