Alliance Alert: The Alliance for Rights and Recovery joined fellow advocates at a press conference in Albany this week to urge state leaders to provide a 2.7% inflationary increase for mental health and substance use agencies. As reported by Spectrum News 1, the event brought together providers and coalitions from across New York to highlight the growing strain on essential community services amid federal funding shortfalls and workforce challenges.
Sean Miranda, a Peer Specialist with Alliance member organization People USA’s Mobile Crisis Response Team, spoke at the press conference about the urgent need for sustained investment in community-based services. Drawing from both his personal recovery experience and his work in crisis response, Sean emphasized how inadequate funding and workforce turnover leave too many New Yorkers without consistent long term services after a crisis—often forcing them back into costly hospital or emergency settings.
The Alliance and our partners are calling on the state to protect mental health and substance use services by providing a 2.7% inflationary increase for agencies and their workforce. This modest adjustment is essential to maintaining the stability of programs that save lives, reduce hospitalizations, and strengthen recovery.
As federal cuts take effect, the Alliance will continue fighting to ensure that New York’s behavioral health system is protected and adequately funded. We will keep advocating for policies that safeguard access to voluntary, community-based supports and ensure that everyone—no matter where they live—has the help they need to recover and thrive.
In Albany, Calls Ramp Up for More Human Services Funding Ahead of Tough State Budget
By Jack Arpey | Spectrum News 1 | October 15, 2025
Mental health advocates were back in Albany Wednesday three months before the start of the legislative session, pleading with the state for a 2.7% inflationary increase to human services funding. They laid out how New York individuals and families are in crisis with massive waitlists, high turnover rates and limited funds to make progress in addressing those issues.
Fearing the impact of federal cuts on other areas of funding and a state budget sure to be battered by them, advocates are calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul and budget officials to provide the increase, and to look elsewhere as they attempt to absorb the impact of those cuts set to ramp up by late next year.
Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association in New York State, is working to get the message across that if these programs aren’t funded properly, taxpayers will end up footing the bill somewhere else at a time when Hochul’s administration continues to drive home an affordability message.
“We’re here to save the state money,” Liebman said. “This 2.7% investment will save literally millions of dollars from people who won’t end up in homelessness, or end up incarcerated, or end up in emergency rooms.”
Bill Gettman, chief executive officer of Northern Rivers, stressed that while the call for an increase across human services is not new, in fact the same advocates have previously endured years with no bump in funding, the need is only growing more acute as struggling facilities brace for an even rockier road ahead.
“The providers here if we go out of business, it’s going to be someone else’s responsibility, its going to fall to the state and the state is going to have to pay a lot more money in their system to care for the folks we care for every day,” he said. “Waitlists are up, at Northern Rivers we have almost a thousand individuals who need services, across New York state we have vacant jobs, and turnover rates somewhere near 35%, there are thousands of vacant jobs in the mental health field.”
Liebman emphasized that turnover rate won’t level off until what he described as a mission driven workforce is paid enough money to remain in their preferred field.
“Mission driven doesn’t pay the rent, it doesn’t pay student loans so thats why we’re asking for this 2.7% increase,” he said.
It is still early in the budget process. The call letter to state agencies directing them to compile their requests by Oct. 24 only went out last week, but that letter stressed the governor’s continued focus on affordability despite acknowledging the significant challenges which lie ahead.