PRESS RELEASE – Nationwide SAMHSA terminated discretionary funding for mental health and substance abuse immediately, without warning, overnight.
The federal government provided no transition time and no clear explanation, greatly impacting substance use and mental health services and employment in our community.
Mental health and substance use services are now disrupted, leaving community members who rely on these services at risk.
Staff positions and programs are now destabilized due to this sudden and unexpected loss of funding. Communities lost critical services overnight.
According to Deacon D. Dzierzawski, President of Epiphany Community Services, “A letter was sent after 10:00 PM on Tuesday evening, notifying grantees their SAMHSA grant, which focuses mental health and substance abuse prevention, intervention and treatment, was terminated.
This means communities will lose effective, evidence-based programming that is critical in addressing mental illness and substance misuse. This will also lead to rising unemployment locally as the staff who supported this programming are impacted.”
The letter stated that the affected grants were terminated due to no longer being aligned with program goals and/or SAMHSA’s priorities; however, these grants addressed substance use and mental health, which are listed as priorities on SAMHSA’s website.
It is imperative this funding be restored without delay. Ensuring hundreds of thousands of people do not lose their jobs and millions of people do not lose access to vital mental health and substance abuse services.
Epiphany Community Services is as national public health evaluation firm that works with communities to mitigate the impact of mental illness and substance use in the community. More information can be found at www.epiphanycommunityservices.com.