CONTACT: Mariah McGough, mariah@vocal-ky.org
VOCAL-KY CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTMENT INTO HOUSING AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN RESPONSE TO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE REPORT FINDING UNNECESSARY INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND INCARCERATION
DOJ Calls for the Same Housing, Care, and Investments that Community Organizations Demanded for Years, Like in VOCAL-KY’s Roadmap for Louisville Metro Government
LOUISVILLE, K.Y. — Last week, the Department of Justice released a Findings Report that confirms reasonable cause that Kentucky violates the ADA by failing to provide adults with serious mental illness in the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro area with the community-based services necessary to avoid segregation in psychiatric hospitals. In response, VOCAL-KY released the following statement, attributable to Shameka Parrish-Wright, VOCAL-KY Executive Director:
“Yet again, the Department of Justice finding confirms what many of us already knew: Kentucky has refused to adequately fund housing and care programs, leading to needless institutionalization, police interaction and jail time for people who just needed help.
The report and what it calls for is not validating — it is infuriating. We have been calling for mobile crisis responses, supportive housing, respite centers and all of these investments for years. We have pointed to Opioid Settlement Funds as a way to fund these urgent needs. This report should be a wakeup call and signal to finally make the changes to services and care that actually meet people’s needs.”
BACKGROUND:
According to the Findings Report, “The department’s investigation found Kentucky fails to provide access to community-based mental health services for many people with serious mental illness who need them, including services such as: mobile crisis response, crisis stabilization and crisis respite, case management, Assertive Community Treatment, Permanent Supportive Housing, supported employment and peer support… The lack of community-based services has also left law enforcement as routine responders to mental health crises, contributing to avoidable law enforcement encounters and incarceration.”
VOCAL-KY is a part of Stakeholders Against the LMDC Jail Deaths, which was formed to have a coordinated community response to deaths and other inhumane conditions connected to local jails. The Care Not Cages coalition, which VOCAL-KY also supports, advocates against a new jail we can’t afford, and instead focusing on improvements through contracts, internal and external programming, prevention and actions that reduce recidivism.
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