$49.2 million<\/a> by the end of the year. But those funds are being held in escrow pending litigation on the tax. Still, Johnson said he\u2019s confident the city will prevail in court, especially since the state has since enacted a similar tax.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re pretty confident about our ability to move through the litigation process and have the permanent revenue stream to make sure that we\u2019re protecting our public institutions, and especially mental and behavioral healthcare,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Johnson\u2019s administration reopened city-run mental health clinics in Pilsen and Roseland. In 2025, the city\u2019s budget allocated about $12.2 million for mental health clinics. The city\u2019s larger budget for mental health programming in recent years has leaned heavily on federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to the 2025 audit.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s 2027 budget proposal calls for $5 million for CARE, which is similar to the federal funds allocated for it. About $5.2 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan was allocated for the program, but those federal funds end this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe motivation for me has always been based upon just lived experiences, and the fact that, you know, you had previous administrations that actually shut down mental and behavioral healthcare, right?\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd previous administrations that refused to make these investments. So my motivation is certainly very much connected to the need that is substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal funds were used to staff citywide operations. The teams respond to requests for mental health services via 911 calls or when a dispatcher initiates a CARE response. The program recently expanded its hours from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., the city previously announced.<\/p>\n
Johnson said the city continues to work on building trust for these new services, pointing to an increase in calls for CARE teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more we make this readily available, I believe that that confidence will continue to grow,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s 2027 budget proposes using city funds to reopen a community mental health clinic and create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-889702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889702","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=889702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}