Mental health care in the United States is facing a record crisis with the approaching end of the year 2025. This comes with the latest survey from the National Alliance on Mental Illness showing that nearly a fifth of the country’s citizenry rate their mental health as “poor” and a “majority believe the system of mental health care in the country is at a breaking point.” Yet many people continue to struggle with accessing or affording the mental health help they need when they need it most when awareness of the importance of mental health care is at an all-time high.
A new poll shows massive majorities of Americans opposed to federal program cuts in mental health care and housing assistance programs and suicide prevention programs. But federal budgets are pending cuts in programs at federal agencies that aim to divert funds from clinics and supportive housing programs that are key components of local mental health care systems and structures and processes that prevent suicide.
In reaction to this, NAMI has kicked off initiatives with other collaborating groups to rally families, service providers, and people with lived experience in demanding that Congress preserve and expand mental health services. They insist that mental health services are non-discretionary items, which are infrastructures of exactly the same type: roads and electricity. Comprehensive mental health services include school counselors, crisis lines, peer-delivery programs, and mental health care. Comprehensive mental health services can provide benefits that will enable people to stay housed and working.
Stories like these are at the center of the debate: “parents calling hotlines at midnight, veterans waiting six months for appointments, teenagers denied treatment at full inpatient programs.” As policymakers debate the budget, communities are making their voices heard so that mental health treatment does not fall through the cracks in 2026.
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