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Vol. 2, No. 3.5
March 2011
MFS CHRONICLE
A SPECIAL EDITION OF THE STAFF NEWSLETTER
MFS SUPPORTERS AT STATEHOUSE RALLY IN CONCORD
A STATEMENT BY JAYME COLLINS, Chief Executive Officer, Monadnock Family Services, after the rally Thursday:
“The state of New Hampshire made a promise 20 years ago – to care for the people with mental illness sent back to their communities to live when the federal government required state mental institutions to close. New Hampshire was told to provide funding to support them.
“New Hampshire said, ‘Go home, build a life in your community, we promise there will be support there to help you.’
“Those of us in the mental health field know that all the dollars that were promised by the states never quite made it to the communities. But we made do.
“It has been a tribute to the consumers of mental health services that in spite of facing unrelenting stigma, poverty, illnesses, both mental and physical, and discrimination, they have triumphed and embraced every opportunity and helping hand they could.
“New Hampshire has slowly whittled away at that promised aid and the New Hampshire House was poised today to break that promise for good -- with a budget cut that would eliminate services to more than 7,000 children and adults in New Hampshire.
“We came to Concord today to raise a voice in behalf of the most vulnerable among us. We hope our legislators heard our hue and cry. It is genuine and comes from a desperate sense of abandonment by a legislature determined to cut state spending to the people least able to afford it. We want New Hampshire’s legislators to keep that promise they made 20 years -- not break it.
“Community mental health services in New Hampshire have been getting serious budget cuts for the past two years. We at Monadnock Family Services have tightened our administrative belt and kept our services available to consumers.
“The House budget proposal would deliver a death blow to the mental health system on which so many depend.
“Today in Concord, more than a thousand individual stories came together in one voice to say simply, ‘You promised.’
“If these cuts to the mental health system are not restored in the Senate, New Hampshire will be the first state to break the promise and offer no alternative forms of care.
“This is an important budget and what is happening in Concord will likely receive national attention, sending a message across the land that New Hampshire, with its first-in-the-nation primary election, has a basic disregard for human rights. Not an image we want.”
PREPARING SIGNS FOR THE STATEHOUSE RALLY
Volunteers arranged by RSVP/The Volunteer center prepare signs for the
Statehouse rally.
TAKING THE BUS TO CONCORD
People began gathering at the Marriott for the bus ride to
Concord. And they had a comfortable ride up and back.
THE CROWD GATHERS AT THE STATEHOUSE
THE SIGNS OF THE DAY THROUGHOUT THE CROWD
There were all manner of messages for the
state’s legislators but the bottom line was
that the final budget needs to better serve
the people of New Hampshire.
JAYME COLLINS INTERVIEWED BY MEDIA AT RALLY
Jayme Collins was interviewed by WBZ-TV, Boston, Channel 9 in
Manchester, Boston-based New England Cable News and a student video
journalist from Keene State College.
FACES FROM THE MONANDOCK REGION AT THE RALLY
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