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CO Mad Moms, a grassroots coalition of family members and caregivers for those living with severe mental or brain illnesses, is seeking your support to RIGHT A BIG WRONG. Our very ill family members are being deprived of inpatient beds in hospitals to receive treatment for their severe mental illnesses and brain disorders. Colorado, like most states, is severely lacking in beds for treatment, whether civil or forensic. When there are not enough beds, our loved ones languish untreated in jails or on the streets. If they are in jail and assessed incompetent to proceed to trial and not likely to be restored, they may not qualify for civil commitment. If there is no bed available, they may be released to the streets where they are likely to die or endanger the public; or they may return to our homes without proper medical support, endangering themselves and their own families. There must be another option.

Since the 1950’s Colorado’s bed count for the severely mentally ill has decreased from 5,720 in 1955 to 686 currently. "A minimum of 50 beds per 100,000 people is considered necessary to provide minimally adequate treatment for individuals with severe mental illness. In Colorado, we have about 10 beds per 100,000."*  We are seeing the results of that loss of inpatient beds and inadequate transitional housing, in our homes and the streets of our neighborhoods daily. Most people with severe mental illness are not aggressive or violent, but some can be when psychotic. Our families cannot always have them living under our roofs, yet they are not safe on our streets untreated, which furthers the degeneration of their brains and increases their inability to survive. As caregivers of gravely ill family members, we are left feeling guilty for not being able to house them, spending our life savings attempting to house them elsewhere, or risking our own safety as we try to care for them. The heartache is overwhelming.

“The consequences of that failure to create a robust mental health system are now coming home to roost, and it is unfair for the people who are the victims of crimes, and it is unfair for the people who have these diseases,” said Senator Judy Amabile.

A gravely disabled person does not belong on the street or in jail. They do not have the capacity to help themselves, suffering from anosognosia or the lack of self-awareness, and do not understand they are ill and need medications. They are caught in a whirlpool of dysfunction, the churn that keeps them moving from the street to jail to temporary hospitalization and back to the street. THIS MUST STOP!!

We are pleading for Governor Polis to right this wrong, to redistribute allocated funds to create a continuum of care starting with long-term housing for those who cannot recover, who are found incompetent to stand trial for crimes they may have committed while in psychosis. For those who may recover, we need transitional housing that supports their healing at the level they require. That is the humane action to take to make Colorado a state that leads in caring for the mentally ill instead of being ranked in the bottom five in the nation.

Please support this request by signing this petition.

*https://www.tac.org/map_directory/colorado/#state-psychiatric-hospital-beds-in-colorado

*https://www.tac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Coloradobedsinformation.pdf

*https://www.tac.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/TAC_ORPA_ResearchSummary1.24.pdf