The Future of Mental Health Is on the Line—We Must Protect It

Federal restructuring risks erasing decades of progress. Together, we can demand better for our communities.

Each May, we pause to raise awareness about mental health, which also serves as a time to engage in conversations about emotional well-being, reducing stigma, and promoting equitable access to care. Mental Health Awareness Month, is a moment for reflection, advocacy, and education—an opportunity to commit to the ideal that mental health for all individuals, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, is critically important.

But this year is different. This May, we should not only be raising awareness—we must sound the alarm.

A System Under Threat

The White House on Friday released President Trump’s FY26 discretionary budget proposal outlining a sweeping consolidation of key public health agencies. Among the most concerning changes is the elimination of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)—two cornerstones of behavioral health and community-based care. These agencies would be subsumed under a newly proposed Advanced Health and Human Services Administration (AHA). As an example, the proposed budget calls for a decrease of $1 billion to SAMHSA with funding being eliminated for the following:

• Mental health programs of regional and national significance.

• Substance use prevention programs of regional and national significance, and substance use treatment programs of regional and national significance.

This restructuring and funding reductions, coupled with proposed cuts to Medicaid, severely jeopardizes the infrastructure we’ve spent decades building. It threatens to unravel advancements in equity-focused service delivery, overdose prevention, crisis response, and integrated care models that address mental health, substance use, and the social drivers of health.

These changes are not trivial. They represent a fundamental de-prioritization of behavioral health at the federal level, occurring at a time when rates of depression, anxiety, overdose, and suicide are at historic highs.

Mental Health Is Not Optional

Mental health is not a niche issue, mental health is not a luxury or an add-on—it is a prerequisite for thriving individuals and communities. When an individual’s mental health is neglected, the ripple effects are profound. Children who struggle with anxiety or trauma face barriers to learning, forming relationships, and succeeding in school. Adults managing depression or addiction may find themselves unable to maintain employment, housing, or consistent healthcare. Families are pushed to the brink, caregivers burn out, and entire communities feel the impact as public systems—like emergency departments, law enforcement, and shelters—are stretched beyond capacity.

Mental health challenges do not exist in a vacuum. They are deeply intertwined with issues of poverty, discrimination, housing insecurity, and systemic inequity. And yet, the resources we dedicate to addressing mental health are seemingly often the first on the chopping block.

Let’s be very clear: mental health is foundational—to public safety, to education, to economic stability, and to our collective wellbeing. Treating it as anything less is both a policy failure and a moral one.

To propose structural cuts at a time of heightened need is not only shortsighted—it is dangerous.

This Is the Moment for Action

Awareness is a first step—but it is not enough. This Mental Health Awareness Month must be a call to action. We cannot afford to be passive observers while the behavioral health infrastructure is dismantled. Here’s what we must do:

1. Organize Across Sectors: Advocates, providers, policy makers, educators, and people with lived experience must form or join existing coalitions that speak with one voice. Behavioral health cannot be siloed—it intersects with housing, employment, justice, and education. Let’s connect the dots and demand whole-person, cross-sector, integrated solutions.

2. Protect Medicaid as a Lifeline: Medicaid is the largest payer of mental health and substance use services in the U.S. Cuts to this program would devastate access for children, people with disabilities, those living in poverty, and individuals with serious mental illness or substance use disorders. We must call on elected officials to reject budget proposals that weaken Medicaid’s reach and impact.

3. Preserve Federal Behavioral Health Leadership: SAMHSA and HRSA play unique and essential roles. Their elimination would erase decades of dedicated expertise, evidence-building, and national coordination. AHA may be pitched as streamlined—but centralizing behavioral health functions without dedicated focus risks losing visibility, accountability, and momentum. Behavioral health must remain a visible, high-level federal priority.

4. Tell the Human Stories: Behind every data point is a person—an individual struggling with an addiction or a family navigating systems that are already too complex and underfunded. Policymakers need to hear how these changes will affect real lives. If you are a clinician, advocate, caregiver, or someone in recovery—your voice is essential at the local, state and federal levels.

5. Stay Engaged and Visible: Now is not the time to retreat. Now is the time to show up. Submit public comments. Attend town halls. Write op-eds. Educate your networks. Support advocacy organizations doing the heavy lifting.

A Future Worth Fighting For

I have spent my entire career working in and alongside systems serving those most in need: individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, people experiencing homelessness, youth in crisis, and communities left behind by traditional health models. I believe in a future where mental health is a human right. Where care is accessible, integrated, dignified, and culturally responsive. Where no one falls through the cracks.

But we won’t get there by talking about these issues once a year—we must fight for it—every day.

Let this Mental Health Awareness Month be the moment we move from awareness to action. Let it be the moment where we protect what we’ve built—and commit to the work ahead.