{"id":47213,"date":"2025-07-30T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/47213\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:34:16","slug":"mothers-fight-shows-the-consequences-of-pas-failure-to-build-a-better-mental-health-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/47213\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Fight Shows The Consequences Of PA’s Failure To Build A Better Mental Health System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA<\/a>\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>. <\/p>\n

By Danielle Ohl |\u00a0Spotlight PA<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A photo of a notebook, paper, a cross, and sobriety chips. Credit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

Sue, Robert, and Jonathan are pseudonyms. Their names and some details have been changed to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n

When Sue thinks back on that cold spring morning in 2022, there are things she knows and things she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

She knows her son Robert, who has had a serious mental illness for nearly a decade, turned up half-naked at her mother\u2019s house, freezing, and in the throes of psychosis. She doesn\u2019t know where he\u2019d been or how he got there.<\/p>\n

She knows she drove him home, tried to get him to take a hot shower, and put on warm, clean clothes. She doesn\u2019t know why he refused.<\/p>\n

She knows Robert begged for help getting to the hospital because there was something wrong inside his head. She doesn\u2019t know why, when a state trooper arrived, he changed his mind.<\/p>\n

She knows that after hours of erratic behavior, Robert agreed to go to the hospital if they called for an ambulance. She doesn\u2019t know why, when he saw it arrive, he went for the knife drawer.<\/p>\n

She knows she threw her body across the kitchen island in time to stop her son from ending his life.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t know if she made the right decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just play this over and over in my mind.<\/p>\n

Maybe I shouldn\u2019t have taken that knife out of his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Handwriting excerpts throughout this story are from the notebook Sue uses to keep track of her attempts to get care for Robert.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By the time Robert was born in the mid-1990s, Pennsylvania had been closing its psychiatric hospitals for decades.<\/p>\n

The hospitals provided intensive, publicly supported care for people with mental illnesses that were severe enough to interfere with everyday life.<\/p>\n

But by the late 1980s, some had become notorious\u00a0for violence and abuse. Inside these institutions, even people who did not experience headline-grabbing conditions could languish for months and sometimes years beyond what their treatment required.<\/p>\n

Some never left.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Newspaper headline clippings from stories in the 1980s discussing problems with state mental health hospitals.<\/p>\n

Persistent stories of barbaric conditions and patient deaths at Philadelphia State Hospital prompted a state investigation and eventual closure under then-Gov. Bob Casey Sr. Speaking to reporters during a teleconference in 1987, Casey previewed what would become the consensus around Pennsylvania\u2019s state hospitals over the next three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to put these people out on the streets,\u201d Casey said. \u201cBut we can no longer tolerate packing them into little more than a warehouse. Neither option is acceptable to me, nor should it be to a caring and civilized society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Studies following closures at Philadelphia and Allegheny County\u2019s Woodville State Hospital showed that patients enjoyed far better lives when receiving care in their communities than while institutionalized.<\/p>\n

In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this sentiment in\u00a0Olmstead v L.C., requiring states to provide people with mental disabilities access to community-based care.<\/p>\n

{{< audio src=”https:\/\/files.data.spotlightpa.org\/uploads\/01m7\/wvaf\/rbg-reads-olmstead-opinion.mp3″ label=”Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reads her opinion for Olmstead v. L.C. “open=”true” >}}<\/p>\n

Just over a year later, a group of psychiatric patients sued Pennsylvania to win their promised care. Like the plaintiffs in\u00a0Olmstead, they were eligible for community treatment but remained institutionalized.<\/p>\n

A federal appeals court sided with the patients in 2004 and directed Pennsylvania to create a plan to release them. But a year later, the case was again in front of that court and the patients were still in the hospital.<\/p>\n

In his ruling, appellate Judge Max Rosenn commended Pennsylvania for reducing the patient population from nearly 40,000 in the 1950s to just 3,000 in 2000. But\u00a0his opinion<\/a>\u00a0was scathing in its assessment of the commonwealth\u2019s plan to deinstitutionalize the rest of the state hospital system: It amounted to no plan at all.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s cornerstone program for getting patients \u2014 and the funding supporting them \u2014 out of state hospitals also showed little promise, Rosenn wrote.<\/p>\n

Called the Community Hospital Integration Project Program, or CHIPP, it was established in 1991 to preserve the dollars used to run state hospitals for use in the community.<\/p>\n

But while it initially identified concrete goals and benchmarks \u2014 such as downsizing the system by 250 beds a year and closing the civil wings of three hospitals \u2014 the department \u201cinexplicably\u201d failed to follow through on the steps laid out to reach them, Rosenn wrote.<\/p>\n

CHIPP was never intended to be the last word on what the commonwealth planned to do in serving Pennsylvanians with mental illness, the state argued. It was just a first step. In fact, it was a framework for future steps.<\/p>\n

But Rosenn wasn\u2019t convinced and pushed the state to act, not just plan: \u201cGeneral assurances and good-faith intentions neither meet the federal laws nor a patient\u2019s expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raising Robert was easy.<\/p>\n

Sue remembers a meticulous kid who was careful about maintaining his curly hair, but effortless in the way he moved through his life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A photo of Torrance State Hospital.
\nCredit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

A natural student, his name regularly appeared in the local paper alongside other classmates who made the honor roll.<\/p>\n

A gifted, third-generation athlete, he stunned spectators when he won a match against competitors more than twice his age.<\/p>\n

A good brother, Robert teased his siblings, who unlike him, needed reminders to grab their backpacks and do their homework.<\/p>\n

Sue was there for it all. A self-admitted helicopter parent, the single mom chaperoned every field trip and went to all the games and competitions and recitals, content to sit in the audience by herself if it meant supporting her children.<\/p>\n

If the kids forgot their gym clothes or an assignment, and Sue knew they\u2019d have to miss recess to make up for the infraction, she\u2019d miss work to take whatever they needed to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they were having a bad day, I was having a bad day,\u201d Sue said.<\/p>\n

Robert, the oldest, made the constant effort feel worth it. \u201cEveryone loved him,\u201d Sue said, \u201cthe kids and the older people.\u201d<\/p>\n

At his competitions, he would sign autographs on frisbees and hats and throw them into the stands. On errands around their small town, he was like the mayor. \u201cEverywhere we went, they\u2019d be yelling, \u2018Hey, Robert! Curly, hey!\u2019 And I\u2019d say to Robert, \u2018Who\u2019s that?\u2019 And he\u2019d say, \u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He spent summers swimming at the nearby lake and occasionally at his aunt\u2019s pool with his siblings and his cousin Jonathan. He was a good friend and son, a rock for Sue, especially after she divorced his father early in his childhood.<\/p>\n

He graduated high school with honors, enrolled in a nearby university, and began working toward a degree.<\/p>\n

His next 20 years seemed as certain as his first.<\/p>\n

Despite Rosenn\u2019s misgivings, Pennsylvania made progress in the years following his ruling.<\/p>\n

In 2005, the state published \u201cA Call for Change,\u201d a 74-page document describing the radical transformation needed in the mental health care system.<\/p>\n

In the years after, officials brought together the people who would need to buy into closing state hospitals \u2014 providers, advocates, unions representing hospital workers, and most crucially patients with lived experience.<\/p>\n

And for a short while, CHIPP worked.<\/p>\n

Under former Gov. Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania closed three more hospitals: Harrisburg in 2006, Mayview in 2008, and Allentown in late 2010.<\/p>\n

Following each closure, funding for community supports increased.<\/p>\n

People with jobs as providers or staff within the institutions took other positions within the state government. Those with lived experience managing a mental illness found jobs as peer specialists, working with people still in crisis. The state also formalized standards for community treatment teams: groups of mental health staff that would mobilize to help people with complicated and serious needs.<\/p>\n

Those days were extraordinary, said Joan Erney, who oversaw the hospital closures as deputy secretary of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.<\/p>\n

It was joyful, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we all felt extraordinarily optimistic about the future of the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, President Barack Obama directed the U.S. Department of Justice to prioritize enforcing the\u00a0Olmstead\u00a0decision. Shortly after, Pennsylvania published its first Olmstead plan, a written blueprint for how the state would build on the momentum.<\/p>\n

The document outlined the kinds of goals and deadlines Rosenn had wanted to see state officials commit to.<\/p>\n

Slightly less ambitious than prior plans, the new one nevertheless showed the state\u2019s commitment to progress: It would use CHIPP to close 90 beds a year. The state funds previously used to support those beds would continue to flow into the community. Counties would develop their own mini versions of the plan to ensure follow-through.<\/p>\n

The next 10 years seemed as promising as the last.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A photo of a highway in Pennsylvania.
\nCredit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

Slowly, and then all at once, Robert started to change.<\/p>\n

He had always been health-conscious, Sue said, but his preferences grew peculiar.<\/p>\n

He started avoiding the microwave and eyeing his mother suspiciously when she used it. Robert\u2019s once-diligent grooming regimen of showering and changing clothes multiple times a day began to slip.<\/p>\n

His first year of college became stressful when he became a father. Robert was the same age as Sue when she had him.<\/p>\n

Then, his cousin Jonathan died.<\/p>\n

Jonathan met up with Robert while visiting home during his first semester in college. On his way back that night, Jonathan fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. Robert was likely one of the last people to see him alive.<\/p>\n

Looking back on the decade that followed, Sue sees this moment as an inflection point in not only her son\u2019s life but her own.\u00a0As grief and guilt began to unravel her son, navigating Pennsylvania\u2019s disjointed mental health system began to unmoor Sue.<\/p>\n

Months after Jonathan\u2019s crash, Robert was in one of his own. The resulting DUI led to a stint in a nearby rehab. The structure helped, Sue said, and Robert became a leader at the facility, helping clean out the chapel so he and the other people enrolled in the 12-step program could have somewhere to pray.<\/p>\n

But even when Robert was sober, emotional hardships would trigger setbacks, Sue said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

She watched as the corkscrew curls Robert maintained so carefully as a teenager grew long and tangled. He dug a crater into his palm, convinced pencil graphite embedded in his skin from some long-forgotten schoolyard shenanigans was causing his mind to betray him.<\/p>\n

As Robert began to cycle in and out of paranoia and psychotic breaks, the next years of Sue\u2019s life became dominated by unspeakable choices.<\/p>\n

Should she help her son, even as he burrowed further into distrust and sent her texts full of bile and accusations? Should she spend her days and nights on the phone with the county mental health office, with lawyers, with the governor\u2019s office, with kind but unhelpful people who told her over and over, \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d and \u201cthe system is broken\u201d and \u201cthis is just the way it is?\u201d<\/p>\n

Or should she give up?<\/p>\n

Should she lock her doors, stop the phone calls, and let her son continue to sink into destabilizing paranoia, whatever the consequences?<\/p>\n

Should she let Robert go?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Gov. Tom Corbett\u2019s 2013 budget was catastrophic for county mental health departments.<\/p>\n

The 2008 economic recession had taken its toll on Pennsylvania. State revenue plummeted when the market crashed, and by Corbett\u2019s second year in office, federal stimulus dollars had dried up. Left with state spending in excess of the revenue coming in, and unwilling to raise taxes on state residents, Corbett took a hard-line on spending.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Tom Corbett speaking in Falls Township in 2014.
\nCredit: Tom Sofield\/LevittownNow.com<\/p>\n

He initially targeted Pennsylvania\u2019s public schools and universities, but uproar following the proposed cuts sent Corbett and the Republican-controlled General Assembly searching for other targets. They found them in social services for groups with less political capital, among them Pennsylvanians with severe mental illness.<\/p>\n

He stands by those choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2013 budget decisions, made over a decade ago, reflected the economic realities of that time,\u201d Corbett told Spotlight PA in a statement. \u201cWe aimed to balance compassion with fiscal responsibility, and I stand by the tough but necessary decisions we made to steer Pennsylvania through a fiscal crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the results were devastating.<\/p>\n

For years, Pennsylvania has required counties to provide mental health services but provided most of the funding to do so. Alongside the money the state sent counties as it closed hospitals, it also provided so-called base dollars. That funding allowed counties to create services for vulnerable people who either do not qualify or are not signed up for medical assistance.<\/p>\n

The dollars also fund services, such as housing, transportation, and case management, that aren\u2019t covered by private insurance and public medical assistance but can be crucial for people who have serious mental illness.<\/p>\n

Before the Corbett cuts, that funding flowed through a discrete program alongside funding for other social services. To lessen the blow, the administration offered a block grant that combined the programs, creating one cash infusion counties could use for different needs.<\/p>\n

For counties that chose to use the grant, the flexibility provided some help but\u00a0couldn\u2019t paper over the reduced funding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But even as voters, frustrated with the austerity of the Corbett administration, selected Democrat Tom Wolf to lead the state, the money did not return.<\/p>\n

With fewer dollars, counties offered fewer services and reached fewer people.<\/p>\n

As progress toward the grand vision slowed, a tension emerged.<\/p>\n

The state had a federal mandate to sunset its inadequate state hospital system.<\/p>\n

The county governments, mental health administrators, and clinicians needed somewhere to place the most serious patients, the ones their increasingly meager services could not fully support.<\/p>\n

And there were fewer of those beds than ever.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Handwritten messages layered over each other. The messages say Petition for Commitment, conduct examination, phyciatrist (sic) or licensed pychologist (sic), Norristown Psych Hospital alloted (sic) beds per county\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cPut her on the fucking phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blood was pounding in Sue\u2019s ears, her hard work evaporated by a shower and a book.<\/p>\n

Robert had been kicked out of another treatment facility. Convinced electricity was poisoning him, he ripped outlets from the walls. Or had he thrown the vacuum? Or was this the one where he mopped the carpet?<\/p>\n

The cycle was always the same regardless of the details: Robert, unable or unwilling to find mental health services, checked into a drug and alcohol treatment facility. Without appropriate psychiatric care, he behaved erratically, sometimes violently. The facility, unwilling to keep him in treatment, took him to the hospital. Once there, he\u2019d be held temporarily but discharged to the street relatively quickly, where he\u2019d call Sue to pick him up.<\/p>\n

This time, though, she\u2019d worked with a case manager at a nearby hospital, who pulled strings to find Robert placement in an inpatient mental health treatment program near Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Maybe they could stop the cycle.<\/p>\n

When Robert arrived at the hospital from the treatment facility, he\u2019d been psychotic and covered in feces that he had smeared on the walls. To get him to the program, he\u2019d need to be involuntarily committed. But when the assessor arrived to determine whether he could be, Robert had showered and was reading in bed.<\/p>\n

He was stable \u2014 for the moment.<\/p>\n

Seeing that, the assessor decided Robert was no longer a danger to himself or others. His spot would go to someone else in more apparent need.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat!?\u201d Sue said she asked the assessor over the phone. \u201cPeople had to jump through hoops to find placement for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incensed, she asked the woman if mental illness only affects people who are illiterate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, really? That is your deciding factor? He can read?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A photo of a rosary and sobriety chips.
\nCredit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

Hospital, community, relapse, homelessness. Or worse.<\/p>\n

Scott Baldwin has been the mental health administrator for Lawrence County since 2020. Over that time, he\u2019s watched residents repeat this pattern over and over.<\/p>\n

But for people with serious mental illness, it\u2019s not just a pattern, \u201cthat\u2019s the system,\u201d Baldwin said.<\/p>\n

In the decade since the Corbett cuts, Pennsylvania has not closed a state hospital \u2014 with the exception of the civil wing of Norristown \u2014 halting the progress of the late 2000s and early 2010s. But until recently, the state has also not increased funding for community care..<\/p>\n

\u201cWe make these promises to these people that are coming out of these institutions, and we\u2019re given a pittance to be able to support them in the community,\u201d said Miki Drutchal, the mental health administrator for Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n

In rural counties with smaller populations spread across wide areas, limited state funds overburden the few existing programs; some even have to share their resources with neighboring counties, further stretching their reach. This in turn affects hiring: Attracting and retaining clinicians in these areas is a struggle, especially as fewer dollars are available to entice them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to beg providers to come and provide service in Greene,\u201d said Brean Fuller, the county mental health administrator.<\/p>\n

In 2024, for the first time in over a decade, struggling counties received more state money for mental health.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed and the legislature approved a $40 million increase in county base funding in his first two years in office.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gov. Josh Shapiro speaking in at Pennsbury High School in Falls Township. File photo.
\nCredit: Tom Sofield\/LevittownNow.com<\/p>\n

Spotlight PA sent a detailed list of findings to the Department of Human Services and Shapiro\u2019s office. In response, DHS spokesperson Brandon Cwalina sent a\u00a0statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Shapiro Administration has consistently proposed new, significant investments in mental health resources across the Commonwealth \u2013 and worked in a bipartisan manner with the General Assembly to deliver the most meaningful increases in mental health funding in years,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The statement also highlighted Shapiro\u2019s executive order creating a Behavioral Health Council to improve collaboration between government agencies and others involved in the mental health system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are further working with all involved parties, including counties and the General Assembly, to find short- and long-term solutions,\u201d Cwalina said, \u201cespecially prevention and diversion strategies that can help strengthen this system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapiro has proposed an additional $20 million in his 2025 budget, as well as additional investments in community-based care and step-down programs for people in state hospitals.<\/p>\n

So far, the infusions have not reversed years of underfunding.<\/p>\n

Spotlight PA partnered with the Lehigh Valley Justice Institute to analyze mental health income and expenditure reports from all 67 counties between fiscal years 2017 to 2023, the most recent year available from the Department of Human Services.<\/p>\n

The analysis found counties are doing less with less. Between 2017 and 2023, statewide spending on mental health declined by roughly $147 million. Over the same time, mental health services reached fewer people statewide, declining from about 435,000 people served to under 350,000.<\/p>\n

The lack of mental health resources is especially stark in communities, like Lawrence County, that do not have access to one of the remaining six state hospitals.<\/p>\n

After Mayview closed in 2008, the county received CHIPP dollars to offset the closure, funds that were expected to be untouchable. But the state slashed that money under Corbett as well, Baldwin said. The few state dollars Lawrence County does receive go directly to long-term supported housing for people who have high-level needs and likely always will. But those beds are limited and expensive, Baldwin said.<\/p>\n

If county support isn\u2019t available for someone with long-term need, private facilities may not be an option either.<\/p>\n

In a system where high acuity care is largely privatized, Baldwin said, \u201cYou\u2019d be surprised how many hospitals will just say \u2018This is a difficult case. I can\u2019t handle this behavior.\u2019 So, then what?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sue grabbed the knife out of Robert\u2019s hand, the kitchen exploded into chaos.<\/p>\n

The state trooper dove onto Robert and Sue, yelling and fumbling for his handcuffs. Unable to grab Robert\u2019s wrists, the trooper shackled his bare ankles.<\/p>\n

Sue pleaded as Robert writhed underneath her and beat against the trooper, who radioed for backup.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did not go after you or me with this knife,\u201d she shouted, desperate to keep Robert from being shot. \u201cSay it out loud: He was going to slit his own throat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trooper repeated her words, and Sue broke free from her son. The officer pulled his Taser, shocking Robert twice.<\/p>\n

But Robert fought on. He managed to get upright, continuing to grapple with the officer. Then Robert lunged at Sue, knotting his fingers in her hair.<\/p>\n

The three tumbled through the kitchen door, onto the porch. Officers stood on the lawn, weapons drawn.<\/p>\n

Sue screamed to the nearby EMTs for help. Police wrestled Robert to the ground, ripping out the chunks of Sue\u2019s curls still tangled in his fingers.<\/p>\n

The medics sedated Robert once, then twice, as he struggled against his mother, the strangers on the lawn, and the chaos in his head.<\/p>\n

His body went limp, but his eyes fixed on his mother.<\/p>\n

Sue watched the responders load her son into the ambulance, Taser prongs still embedded in his back.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania had an opportunity to help its struggling mental health system.<\/p>\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state received billions of dollars through the American Rescue Plan Act, funds that supported everything from rental assistance to local infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the state legislature set aside $100 million to support the adult mental health system that had become strained as more and more state residents reported mental health needs during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

A commission tasked with studying the mental health system\u00a0found it<\/a>\u00a0not only stressed and disjointed but increasingly replaced by the justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Corrections and county jails have unintentionally become the largest providers of behavioral health services in the Commonwealth and are not sufficiently prepared and resourced to meet this population\u2019s needs,\u201d the commission found.<\/p>\n

Spotlight PA\u2019s findings back this up.<\/p>\n

PrimeCare, a private contractor that provides health care to 37 jails across Pennsylvania, supplied Spotlight PA and the Lehigh Valley Justice Institute with 10 years of mental health care data.<\/p>\n

An analysis by the newsroom and the research group found that of people who jail staff screened for mental health needs, more than 60% needed services while incarcerated.<\/p>\n

As counties do less with less, the state\u2019s local jails have seen an increase both in the number of detainees needing mental health services and the seriousness of their need, even as jail populations have declined.<\/p>\n

The company uses four categories to classify the mental health needs of people in jail, ranging from those with no history of mental illness to those with serious diagnoses and significant needs.<\/p>\n

Between 2017 and 2022, the share of incarcerated individuals placed in the two most serious categories grew by roughly five percentage points respectively.<\/p>\n

Between 2014 and 2022, the rate of jailed individuals on suicide watch per 1,000 has more than doubled. In the same period, the percentage of the daily adjusted population on psychiatric medication has increased from under a quarter to roughly 40%.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Spotlight PA\u00a0surveyed the leaders<\/a>\u00a0of more than 20 jails across Pennsylvania. The respondents \u2014 wardens and local government officials tasked with overseeing jails \u2014 said jail can be a costly and harmful path for individuals who come to the facilities because of crimes that are likely a symptom of their mental illness.<\/p>\n

But in Pennsylvania, jail is often the only place that can house a person whose symptoms have resulted in a call to police.<\/p>\n

In response, counties have also had to find funding for services within the justice system: co-responder programs aimed at diverting 911 calls about mental health crises away from police, crisis intervention\u00a0training for local police departments,\u00a0and \u201cforensic\u201d case management for people whose mental health has entangled them in legal trouble.<\/p>\n

The mental health commission report recommended directing $23.5 million of the federal pandemic relief funds to the justice system to pay for care for incarcerated people, services for those leaving jails and prisons, diversion programs, and crisis intervention training for police and emergency responders.<\/p>\n

The report argued the rest of the $100 million should sustain the mental health workforce, create more services, and integrate the mental and physical health systems.<\/p>\n

But in 2023, the first year of Shapiro\u2019s term, the money was diverted\u00a0at the last minute<\/a>\u00a0to support school mental health and safety initiatives, part of a budget deal struck between the Democratic governor and the Republican-run State Senate.<\/p>\n

The elusive dollars, once again promised, were ripped away.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

Despite her years of work, it wasn\u2019t Sue who ultimately found a place for Robert.<\/p>\n

Hours after he arrived at the hospital, medical staff cleared Robert for discharge. Troopers, alarmed at the prospect of releasing him to the street, booked him at the local jail.<\/p>\n

At first, Sue felt an uneasy relief.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t have to worry if her son was cold, if he was on the side of the road, if he was going to overdose.<\/p>\n

But her relief curdled into guilt as Robert sat in jail for days, then weeks, then months.<\/p>\n

While incarcerated, he attempted suicide again. He spent months in solitary confinement under behavioral surveillance, where he continued to fall apart.<\/p>\n

Because of his unstable mental health, officials worried Robert couldn\u2019t aid in his own defense. A county judge stayed court proceedings until Robert could\u00a0get a competency assessment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He never did.<\/p>\n

Robert spent more than a year in jail. He was released only after Sue reached out to a friend with connections in the county.<\/p>\n

Those first few days felt jubilant to Sue. Robert seemed stable and focused on restarting his life. He checked into court-ordered inpatient treatment for 30 days, and once released, started doing virtual therapy sessions from home. He bought a car. He was holding down a job.<\/p>\n

But the peace was tenuous.<\/p>\n

Robert had achieved some stability from treatment in jail, but he also brought home the trauma of months spent alone in a cell. He wouldn\u2019t eat sitting down. He spoke to Sue only in short bursts.<\/p>\n

After an oral surgery,\u00a0Robert went home with a prescription for an opioid painkiller.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robert and Sue text about the pain from his wisdom teeth. After the extraction, Robert received a prescription for a pain killer that triggered a psychotic episode that lasted after he stopped taking the medication.
\nCredit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then he ended up on my roof,\u201d Sue said.<\/p>\n

The drug triggered a psychosis that lasted even after Robert stopped taking it and tested clean for a probation officer. Over the next few months, he spray-painted windows black. He smashed appliances. He accused Sue of poisoning him. He left.<\/p>\n

Getting her son back felt like a miracle. Losing him again felt like a death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing that hurts me the most is not just the pain that he\u2019s going through, but the fact that he thinks I\u2019m a co-conspirator,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m the only one that\u2019s had his back. I\u2019m the only one, and he thinks I\u2019m capable of doing this to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sue mostly lost track of Robert, but she never stopped trying to find solutions.<\/p>\n

So when her mother called again one night in 2024, she grabbed the purple spiral notebook full of names and phone numbers, evidence of her years of advocacy on her son\u2019s behalf. She flipped to the page where she\u2019d taken notes on what state and county officials told her to do if Robert showed up again in crisis.<\/p>\n

She dialed 911.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need a crisis intervention team,\u201d she told the dispatcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat county, ma\u2019am?\u201d<\/p>\n

She told him. The dispatcher paused, and put a local police officer on the line.<\/p>\n

Sue repeated her request, growing more frantic.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s only in the nearby city, he told her, not the small township where Robert was once again banging on his grandmother\u2019s door, demanding money.<\/p>\n

Sue recounted all the officials and mental health advocates who told her to ask for crisis intervention \u2014 the names of all the people written in her purple notebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care who told you what,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m telling you, we have nothing like that here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming soon: Inside the downfall of the state\u2019s CHIPP program<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit: Nate Smallwood\/Spotlight PA<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-47213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}