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1. Mental Health, Homelessness & Addiction Recovery
Our state has certainly made progress in the support of mental health in recent years, but we still have a long way to go. This is especially true with some of our most vulnerable populations -- those experiencing homelessness. Walking around downtown Grand Rapids, it is no secret that we have a homelessness problem. While we've seen some transitional housing projects receive needed funding, much of the funding still goes to traditional shelters. Meanwhile, neither of these solutions best serve those with severe mental health challenges, or those struggling with addiction.
When the Reagan Administration in the 1980's began cutting funding to state-run psychiatric hospitals, it was heralded as an improvement to integrate those with mental health issues into society. Unfortunately, he also cut federal funding to community mental health, putting the burden of funding mental health care almost entirely on states. This meant that many individuals began falling through the cracks in under-funded outpatient care, which is a problem that still exists today. While continuing to prioritize community mental health through state funding is of utmost importance and benefits many in our community regardless of being homeless or not, assisting those with severe mental health issues and providing long term solutions must also be of importance.
I'm certainly not advocating for massive asylums with inhumane treatments for both mild and severe mental health issues to be reopened throughout our state, but for a smaller, patient centered, modern long term medical facility for those who need more than short term inpatient care or long-term outpatient care. Rather than being in medical care facilities, many with severe mental health challenges and addiction find themselves in prison, homeless, or dead. In Grand Rapids, we've seen the downtown business community bear the brunt of the crisis, while the solutions business advocacy groups have supported seek to criminalize those who are homeless. Meanwhile, when the police have nowhere to bring them, they often end of dumped on emergency room nurses, while the costs of this are handed off to all of us through higher medical bills. The homeless person is discharged back to the streets, and the cycle continues. Those actively using drugs cannot go to traditional shelters, in an effort to protect the other residents and the liability of the shelter, meaning those struggling with addiction have few options. This broken cycle harms the homeless, businesses, medical professionals, first responders, and causes reputational damage when people visit our city. It must stop.
I'll support the continued funding of community mental health and the destigmatization of mental health issues, especially in youth. For those with severe mental health struggles and/or addiction, I'll support a state-run facility using best practices for long-term treatment, rather than them ending up in prison after harming someone or getting caught with illegal drugs or caught in the cycle of homelessness due to mental health or addiction. It benefits all of us to tackle this with adequate resources and compassion.
Most importantly, all of my policies seek to reduce barriers, increase opportunity, reduce stress, and have an overall better quality of life. No amount of mental health care or support eliminates the reality that we are living in times of financial stress, anxiety, and combativeness. I know many of you just need some breathing room.
2. Improving the Professional Licensing Process
As a board member on a professional licensing board for medical professionals (nurses), I know firsthand that regulations are needed as a form of oversight to protect the public health and welfare. I also know that the Michigan Public Health Code has some gaps, which often can't be remedied through the limited scope that licensing regulation created by the Executive Branch can offer. At the same time, the layers of board oversight, administrative law, and legislation can be complicated for non-lawyers to understand. While I'll never support relaxing vital laws and regulations to protect the public health and welfare just to make a process easier or cheaper, I will support consolidation, clarity, and removing unneeded red tape after careful review.
While the Executive Branch controls regulations and licensing boards, the legislative branch creates and grants authority to these boards and outlines some basic requirements in the Michigan Public Health Code. My experience on a regulatory board gives me an insight to this process more than almost anyone in the current House or Senate. Let's support our regulatory board members better (who do the work for free) to ensure they have the resources to best serve our state. Let's consolidate boards and commissions where it makes sense. Let's update the Michigan Public Health Code to ensure not only those who hold a medical license are held accountable, but to provide more oversight to hospital systems, while also ensuring our laws match a changing medical landscape with new innovations and best-practices.
As a board member, I also know that nurses struggle with high rates of substance abuse, often leading to suspensions of their licenses. Supporting community mental health care as discussed above is vital here but so is working to improve the support licensed medical professionals receive at work. Supporting adequate staffing through union-negotiated nurse/patient ratios (which requires more hospitals to unionize, as discussed in the Supporting Businesses & Workers section) and increasing the number of students in nursing education programs is vital to improving the wellbeing of nurses, which in turn helps to ensure better care for patients.
3. Supporting Parents of Newborns without a Burden on Businesses
As discussed in other policies, supporting parents of newborns is vital to incentivizing starting a family and growing our state's population. While some politicians support Paid Pregnancy Leave provided by employers, a paid leave of a beneficial length would mean that a business is not only paying the wage of the parent on leave but is likely going to need to pay for a temporary employee to complete the work of the employee on leave. This means they'd be paying two wages for one job over the course of months, which is not feasible for many employers. At the same time, young parents who must take unpaid leave while supporting a newborn are not only taking a pay cut but are often doing so while paying off student loans and a mortgage. My plan doesn't create any new or raised taxes, it simply directs a small portion of state revenue as our economy grows into an account that qualifying parents can apply for, where the birthing parent can receive up to 12 weeks of paid time off, and the other parent can receive an additional 4 weeks, for a total of 4 months (if the newborn is raised by a single parent, the single parent can take the full 16 weeks).
As our economy and state budget grow, we must be prioritizing innovative solutions to support families in our state, in ways that don't put the burden on businesses. This also helps to ensure the birthing parent can recover without the added stress of finances, while all parents are able to dedicate more time to the health and wellbeing of the newborn.
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