U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) is spearheading an effort to examine the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) mortgage assistance to acute care hospitals.
Currently, facilities that focus on mental health care are the only type of acute care hospitals unable to receive federal mortgage assistance.
Emmer sent a letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro requesting a study of HUD’s mortgage assistance to acute care hospitals. He also requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study the impact of allowing inpatient psychiatric hospitals to apply for mortgage assistance. Currently, these facilities are not allowed to.
Joining Emmer in this effort are Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), ranking member on the Financial Services Committee, and Ritchie Torres (D-NY).
“Mental health care is health care. Our current housing policies are outdated and have created a chronic shortage of psychiatric beds that too often abandons patients to the streets or traps them in a cycle of incarceration,” Emmer said. “We already have the tools to bring care to patients in need. The time has come to remove arbitrary barriers to care.”
In June 2022, Emmer and Torres introduced legislation, the Securing Facilities for Mental Health Services Act, to increase the number of psychiatric beds available to patients by eliminating Section 242 of the National Housing Act. This provision prohibits inpatient psychiatric hospitals from applying for mortgage assistance.
“Mental health services in our country are fundamentally flawed. It is time for HUD to take stock of systems that place unnecessary barriers on our most vulnerable citizens from receiving critical treatment. We must take psychiatric care just as serious as health care and begin to help those most in need,” Torres said.
A study published by the National Institutes of Health in 2021 revealed that the United States has 21 psychiatric beds per every 100,000 individuals – which is approximately 40 percent lower than the estimated number of beds needed.
In 2018, Emmer introduced the STRESS Act to ensure that rural areas and farm communities have better access to mental health counselors and specialists. In 2021, he introduced the Expanding Access to Inpatient Mental Health Act in 2021, which would close an arbitrary cap on mental health services for Institutions for Mental Diseases. This past June, his bill, the Due Process Continuity of Care Act — which would continue Medicaid mental health coverage for juvenile detainees while they await trial — passed in the House of Representatives.