The Trump administration has dismantled large portions of the federal agency focused on mental health and addiction treatment, reducing its staff by more than half and alarming local governments, nonprofits, and behavioral health providers that rely on the office for funding and expertise, according to a STAT examination.
Since January, layoffs and funding cuts at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have ground much of the agency’s work to a halt. The agency has terminated $1.7 billion in block grants for state health departments and cut roughly $350 million in addiction and overdose prevention funding. At the Center for Mental Health Services, more than half of its 130 employees have been let go, including all but one of those responsible for youth mental health programs.
Overall, of the roughly 900 staff there in January, less than half remain, including just 5 of the agency’s 17 most senior leaders. Perhaps most tellingly, the White House has not nominated an administrator to lead SAMHSA, instead installing a low-profile deputy who has been powerless to protect the workforce.
Remaining personnel are demoralized and fearful that the 33-year-old agency is on the brink of collapse. And according to interviews with 14 current and former SAMHSA officials as well as Capitol Hill aides, lobbyists, and leaders in the behavioral health field, this federal brain and cash drain is jeopardizing the nation’s response to its twin epidemics of drug overdose and severe mental illness.
