Dear Senator/Representative Name

[Recipient address block]

Dear [Senator/Representative name]:

I am writing to express my strong support for an immediate expansion of the Excellence in Mental Health Act Medicaid Demonstration Program. In 2014, Congress created this eight state initiative to expand access to intensive community-based services for children and adults with serious mental health and addiction disorders. Twenty-four states have received planning grants to prepare for this groundbreaking initiative, and all should have the chance to move forward with the system transformations they are working to implement.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the public mental health system currently serves less than half of people in the United States with conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major clinical depression. The lack of ready access to behavioral health services has a profound impact across American life. Two-thirds of inmates in our jails and prisons meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. Law enforcement agencies consistently report increasing encounters with individuals experiencing acute psychiatric symptoms – leading directly to a “boarding” crisis in community hospital emergency rooms in cities large and small.

Up to one half of homeless people have an untreated mental illness, and nearly 10% of nursing facility residents are non-elderly adults with severe mental illnesses – with the most common diagnosis being schizophrenia. Meanwhile, the opioid crisis sweeping our nation causes upwards of 40 overdose deaths per day.

Congress must speak out and say clearly: nursing homes, county jails, homeless shelters, and hospital emergency rooms can no longer serve as the de facto behavioral health system in the greatest country in the world. The current arrangements are inhumane and hugely expensive.

That is why the Excellence in Mental Health Act has attracted the support of organizations well outside of the traditional mental health and addiction community, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the National Guard Association, the National Sheriffs Association, the National Federation of Police and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Twenty-four states in the South, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West Coast, urban and rural, Red and Blues states, all applied to for the chance to expand access to community-based addiction and mental health care for than 750,000 uninsured and low-income Americans with the most serious and persistent mental health conditions, including 100,000 returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our nation cannot wait. The time is NOW to provide high quality mental health care to our most vulnerable citizens. Please support an immediate expansion of the Excellence Act so that all 24 planning grant states are able to move forward with their important work. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

[your name and organization]