Mental Health Project
Mission
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers with severe mental illness cycle through hospitals, homeless shelters, and jails each year. The mission of the Mental Health Project (MHP) is to break this cycle by forcing our legal, health, and welfare systems to support our clients’ efforts to recover and to live independently.
We have achieved striking success because our advocacy is aggressive, flexible, and multi-faceted.
To learn how to access our services, visit our Get Help link.
Victories over the last year include:
Impact Litigation
We filed two class action lawsuits: Clark v. Barnhart to restore social security benefits to tens of thousands of disabled and retired Americans; and Messiah S. v. Alexander to compel New York State to apply for benefits and to arrange housing and ongoing treatment for thousands of prisoners with psychiatric disabilities instead of dumping them back on the streets. In Harris v. Eggleston, we reached a settlement that will bring millions of dollars in food stamps to thousands of New Yorkers with disabilities.
Direct Services
We fanned out across New York City to provide one-on-one legal services to over 700 people in crisis. Our lawyers, social workers, and advocates traveled to shelters, drop-in centers, jails, and hospitals to win housing, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, welfare, and discharge planning.
Grassroots
After three years of incubation within MHP, we are very proud to announce that Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities (RIPPD) became a separate organization in November 2007 (see www.rippd.org). RIPPD is the only grassroots, truly self-governing, direct-action organizing group in the country that is fighting to end the criminalization of mental illness. Members are prisoners, former prisoners, and family and friends of inmates with psychiatric disabilities. RIPPD members set their own advocacy agenda and choose their own tactics, which have included storming government offices, shaming public officials, and engaging in guerrilla theatre to make sure their voices are heard.
For more information on RIPPD, please contact Lisa Ortega, Community Organizer, at (646) 602-5664.
News and Events
The Mental Health Project is proud to announce the start of our Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities Legal Advocacy Project (PPDLAP). Funded by the Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for People with Disabilities, the PPDLAP will provide representation, information, and advice to parents with psychiatric disabilities in Family Court in abuse and neglect and termination proceedings in New York City and downstate counties.
The PPDLAP will be guided by an Advisory Council that we hope will include three Peer Advisors, a Family Court judge, a mental health expert, a representative of OMH's Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities Project, representatives from CQCAPD PAIMI projects, and a practicing Family Court attorney. The Peer Advisors will be parents with psychiatric disabilities who have experience in Family Court, and will be paid as consultants.
If you are interested in our Advisory Council or you would like to nominate someone, please send a resume or statement of qualifications by May 30, 2008, to:
Bill Lienhard
Project Director, Mental Health Project
Urban Justice Center
123 William Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10038
To learn more about helping parents with psychiatric disability in family court, click here.
Finally, we are currently hiring an attorney to staff the PPDLAP. Please see our job posting at http://www.urbanjustice.org/ujc/contact/jobs.html.
The Mental Health Project is working to protect the Social Security payments of thousands of elderly and disabled people by stopping implementation of the so-called "Fugitive Felons Program." Under this program, the Social Security Administration suspends the benefits of people accused of having an outstanding felony warrant or probation/parole violation.
Read the article from the AARP Bulletin.
If you have been harmed by the Fugitive Felons Program, please call 1-877-MHPLAW1.
