“Historically, federal dollars funded (psychiatric) hospitals, and then there was this movement to deinstitutionalize. Before that, it still wasn’t appropriately funded, but when we lost those dollars, they didn’t come from any other source, so no, it’s been decades of neglect. I don’t know of a time when mental health was appropriately funded in the state of Oklahoma.”
– Terri White, commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, explaining her department’s funding needs in a Senate appropriations hearing on Tuesday. White says that without $10 million in additional funding, an estimated 14,722 will lose mental health and substance abuse treatment services (Source)