Mental Health Caucus Co-Chairs Beyer, Salinas Denounce Trump Administration’s Cancellation of Mental Health and Addiction Grants

Co-Chairs of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) and Congresswoman Andrea Salinas (D-OR) today issued the following statement after the Trump Administration terminated more than 2,000 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grants - nearly $2 billion in funding for organizations providing critical services across the country:

"The Trump Administration's decision to unilaterally and abruptly withdraw grants that help provide essential mental health and addiction treatment services across the country is deeply troubling, dangerously shortsighted, and puts American lives at risk.

"Abruptly canceling these grants will force providers to halt suicide prevention efforts, overdose prevention and treatment programs, naloxone distribution, and peer recovery services with little to no warning. Treatment programs will be forced to close their doors, prevention efforts will stall, and American lives will be lost as a direct result.

"Those consequences will be immediate and severe, but they are avoidable. Addressing mental health and substance use disorders has never been a partisan issue. For decades, Democrats and Republicans have come together to expand access to care because addiction and mental illness affect families in every community across the country. Just last year, the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act to equip communities with the resources necessary to combat substance use disorders and support mental health services passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Trump himself. And last March, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. renewed the public health emergency declaration addressing our nation's opioid crisis.

"Terminating billions of dollars in SAMHSA grants directly contradicts these bipartisan commitments and the Administration's own renewal of the opioid public health emergency, severely undermines the federal response to the opioid crisis, and jeopardizes the treatment and recovery infrastructure American communities rely on.

"The Trump Administration must immediately reverse course, reinstate these critical grants, and ensure the American public has the resources needed to support mental health and addiction treatment."