Claire Levy and Aaron Brockett: Vote ‘yes’ on 1B to strengthen Boulder County’s mental health and addiction care

This commentary is by Claire Levy, a Boulder County commissioner, and Aaron Brockett, mayor of the City of Boulder.

The inability to access mental health care and treatment for addiction is causing a tremendous human toll in our community. Together, we can fix this.

With state and federal funds being cut and fewer people able to access services through Medicaid, it is up to us, the people of Boulder County, to help meet this need. 

Ballot Issue 1B would add a penny and a half to a $10 purchase for three years. It would allow us to continue successful services funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and significantly expand access to services throughout our community. If we show results during this three-year period, then we can ask voters to provide long-term funding for the long-term good of everyone in Boulder County. 

There’s no question about the need. One in five Boulder County residents report receiving a diagnosis of depression, with 39% of youth and 42% of older adults reporting symptoms of depression, according to Boulder County data. Two-thirds of unhoused individuals report a behavioral health disorder, and two-thirds of the jail population are identified as having mental health issues. In 2023, 307 Boulder County residents went to the emergency department due to intentional self-harm; 476 went for a drug overdose.

Sixty-nine people in Boulder County took their own lives in 2023, nearly a third of whom were young adults. Fewer than 20 of these individuals were receiving mental health treatment at the time. The rate of suicide in Boulder County is increasing faster than state and national rates.

Thirty-eight percent of LGB+ residents have been diagnosed with a depressive disorder, more than double the rate of the general population. Seventy-one percent of transgender high school students in Boulder Valley School District have reported experiencing poor mental health most of the time, more than double the rate of cisgender students.

Only 5% of Latino community members receive mental health care compared with 16% of non-Hispanic whites.  

We need services in Boulder County that meet the needs across many communities: youth, Latinos, unhoused and formerly unhoused individuals, veterans, older adults, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with acute needs.

Boulder County convened over 600 people to identify gaps and needs in mental and behavioral health services in Boulder County. People with lived experience, representatives of schools, cities and towns, and people with expertise in criminal justice, prevention, treatment and public health joined to create a Behavioral Health Roadmap. We now have a draft Behavioral Health Strategic Plan to guide investment of new funding.  

That work identified five core funding areas that are the backbone of a system of services that directly link to needs identified by our community: prevention, resource navigation, crisis response, treatment, and recovery.  This tax will help fund those services, allowing us to enhance well-being and create a stronger community. 

Let’s break this down: 

• Prevention funding can augment counseling staff in our schools, so that trained staff who see our kids every day can help if they see a kid who is withdrawn, struggling with drugs or alcohol, or showing signs of self-harm.
  
• Resource navigation funding will provide someone on the phone to help you connect with the right services if you don’t know where to turn for help, if your dominant language isn’t English, or if you have never contemplated seeing a therapist.
  
• Crisis response funding complements navigation and goes beyond that.  Someone who is desperate and may harm themselves when they make that call for help will immediately be connected with a crisis responder who can get them through the crisis.  These funds can help staff Clinica’s (formerly Mental Health Partners) 24/7 walk-in crisis care and urgent psychiatric services, reducing reliance on emergency rooms and the county jail.
  
• Treatment funding will improve access to all forms of treatment for both mental illness and addiction. People whose dominant language is not English, community members who are LGBTQ+, unhoused people who could be successful in an apartment if services were there when they need them, and others will be better able to find treatment from someone they trust.
  
• Recovery services allow the treatment to really take hold and provide lasting benefit.  The hospital can stabilize you and get you through a crisis, whether it is an acute mental break or withdrawal from addiction. To maintain that stability, Boulder County needs a range of services such as intensive outpatient treatment, residential therapeutic homes and peer supports. 

Boulder County’s ARPA (Covid relief) funds, which have funded some of these services, will be gone next year.  We can’t pull the rug out from under the many people who are just beginning to see the benefits of mental health services that they can trust.  But this is about more than just continuing to fund existing services.  A “yes” vote on 1B will allow us to provide new services that can transform the lives of people who have been living with untreated mental illness or addiction.

It is time to support the mental well-being of our fellow community members so that, together, we become a stronger community.