[NYAPRS Enews] CNY: NYC First Lady McCray Ties Mental Health To Income Inequality

Tue May 12 06:27:40 EDT 2015

NYAPRS Note: It’s now clear that NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray has emerged as a vibrant new leader on behalf of people with mental health conditions and public policies that affect them. In just the past few months, the First Lady has:
·         Taken on stigma with her personal disclosures about the depression that her parents have experienced and the support she has given to her daughter Chiara’s disclosure about her own struggles with anxiety, depression and addiction.
·         Successfully advocated for the NYC’s proposed budget’s inclusion of the largest ever increase in mental health spending, exceeding $100 million over the next 2 years to boost services for family shelters, runaway youths and survivors of domestic violence.
·         Recently announced plans for the crafting of a new NYC Mental Health Roadmap (http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2015/pr006-15.shtml).
·         Taken aim yesterday at undervalued economic and racial disparities that are closely associated with serious mental health conditions
Learn more about the First Lady from an interview she recently gave to NPR at http://wbur.fm/1c5QtS2

McCray Ties Mental Health To Income Inequality

By Dan Goldberg Capital New York  May 11, 2015

In her latest public appearance, first lady Chirlane McCray on Monday detailed the importance of the city's mental health services in an interview with HuffPost Live<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VVDYDsPoV6vHUVpwA4c27>.

McCray tied mental health services to broader issues of race, income inequality, and homelessness, and she reiterated her own family's struggles with mental health. Her father suffered from depression, and her daughter has admitted to using drugs to quiet her anxiety, said McCray, who called for an end to the stigma that surrounds mental illness.

McCray has raised her own profile of late to help combat that stigma.

After carefully selecting her media appearances during a quiet first year, McCray has done three interviews in the past week, including a rare question-and-answer session<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VUpUEMPoV6vHAU9ZAc9cd> with New York City reporters, and an interview on NPR<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VUplUsPofInvvZWkAf3b8>.

On Monday, she connected her mental health efforts to income equality, the signature cause of her husband, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is positioning himself as a national spokesman on the issue.

“What we're doing right now with our multiple agency approach is showing how housing, education, incarceration is connected everything else,” McCray said during the HuffPost Live interview.

McCray said the nation's most pressing problem is income inequality, which compounds the difficulty many face when trying to deal with mental illness.

“It's very hard, when you have poverty on top of everything else, it's not healthy for anyone,” McCray said.

McCray also commented on racial disparities, citing a study that said African-Americans are 20 percent more likely to report a mental illness, but, she said, they also find it more difficult to access appropriate services.

"Here’s what that means in real life," she wrote in an op-ed for The Root<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VUy0i0mOMeJeGvTFA835f>. "Millions of African Americans suffer from a mental-health condition and do not get the treatment they need to live a full and productive life."

McCray's public relations blitz comes after the de Blasio administration announced plans to spend $54.4 million in new funding this year<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VUpUEMPoV6vHAU9ZAc9cd> for mental health and social service programs. There is a promise of $78.3 million in fiscal year 2017.

The money, which is set to be funded annually through the budget, will be used to hire social workers and counselors at agencies across the city, including providing mental health services in all contracted family shelters and the city's five justice centers, which serve domestic violence victims.

Watch the interview here: http://huff.lv/1H1r6LV<http://link.capitalnewyork.com/52fba5512c67717d71f12b895551005308e80cf6038b460e/VVEAVMPok6KMI4QsA13d3>

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2015/05/8567776/mccray-ties-mental-health-income-inequality
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