Power Play

Lots of political gamesmanship going on, with Medicaid Expansion hanging in the balance. 

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Impact of Case Management & Mental Health Cuts on Homeless Veterans

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Our own Helen Matveyeff, prepping food at the Pov This op-ed, written by Jill Bonny, director of The Poverello Center 's veteran's services, further underscores the need for case management and mental health counseling for homeless veterans (It was published in last Sunday's Missoulian but not online): Impact of Case Management & Mental Health Cuts on Homeless Veterans It was a cool September morning when Max was dropped off at the front door of the Poverello Center with only the clothes on his back. Max served our country during Operation Iraqi Freedom and suffers from severe mental health conditions, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to his service. After spending several weeks at the Montana State Hospital, Max had nowhere else to go. Like 30% of the Veteran’s we serve here at the Poverello Center, Max does not qualify for healthcare or mental healthcare benefits through the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA). When he was d...
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Too Little, Too Late for Case Management?

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Think of case management as the glue that holds a troubled or disabled person’s life together. When that glue was dissolved by huge state budget cuts in 2017, the lives of some people on the margins began to crumble. Now, the legislature is trying to restore perhaps $3 million for case management, but it may be too little, too late or too dissipated to help all those who were affected, especially in rural areas. That, in essence, is the message of the Behavioral Health Alliance, which represents addiction and mental health providers in Montana. A leading indicator of the impact of the budget cuts is that involuntary mental health commitments are up, according to Mary Windecker, executive director of the alliance. More people are being treated in the hospital, a much more costly result, than in a community setting, and often the first point of contact is with law enforcement, with officers often taking hours to deal with mental-health crises.
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Our first advocacy letters!

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Our advocacy group at Holy Spirit has just finished the first batch of letters to legislators (and many thanks to Carla Mettling for birddogging this). These letters focus on restoring cuts to case management for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. They are addressed to the six majority members of the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, which is considering the governor's budget proposal for the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) for about the next month. Public hearings on the budget for the agency departments most concerned with case management will be held this coming Monday and Tuesday (Jan. 21-22, Developmental Services Division) and next Monday (Jan. 28, Addictive and Mental Disorders Division) in Room 102 of the Capitol, between 8 a.m. and noon. Although the six letters are similar in approach, each was written by a member of Holy Spirit in his or her own voice. Here is just one letter, followed by the different...
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