Massachusetts Governor Healey Cuts Youth Mental Health Programs

Mental health advocates are enraged by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey's plans to reduce spending on mental programs by more than $20 million in her budget for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins July 1, 2025.

Healey, whose budget for the current fiscal year reduced spending for HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C by $3 million, is now aiming a cleaver at funding for three residential treatment programs for youth with significant mental health needs.

Massachusetts, like the rest of the nation, is in the throws of a "mental health crisis," according to MentalHealthAmerica.org.

"Nearly 60 million adults (23.08%) experienced a mental illness in the past year," MHA stated. "Nearly 13 million adults (5.04%) reported serious thoughts of suicide."

"One in five young people from ages 12-17 experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year, yet more than half of them (56.1%) did not receive any mental health treatment," according to MHA. "More than 3.4 million youth (13.16%) had serious thoughts of suicide."

State House News Service reported that "Two 15-bed intensive residential treatment programs (IRTP), operated by Northeast Family Institute NFI Massachusetts in Westborough, that serve teenagers with serious mental health and safety issues would close under Healey's fiscal 2026 spending plan."

That would leave just two other IRTPs in the state.

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"The governor's budget would also shutter the state's only clinically intensive residential treatment (CIRT) program, called Three Rivers in Belchertown, that has a dozen beds and treats children ages 6 to 12," according to SHNS.

Mental Health Commissioner Brooke Doyle told a recent legislative budget hearing, "These programs have been very difficult to maintain adequate and safe staffing within. They've been understaffed for extended periods of time, and that has contributed in large part to why we had difficulty keeping all the beds filled."

Northeast Family Institute Executive Director Lydia Todd told Boston's Fox 25 News, "They just keep showing up through the revolving door in the hospital, seeing them many many times, or they just don't feel they're safe to go home because there's still imminent risk of harm to themselves or others."

The problem is a shortage of staffing, not a shortage of need. It seems somebody's "give-a-damn" is busted.