Charleston Receives $1 Million To Fight Mental Illness

The City of Charleston has been awarded $1 million to create a crisis intervention team to fight mental illness.

The money is part of an overall $241 million package secured by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito for various projects and initiatives throughout West Virginia.

“I am thrilled to see this money heading directly to West Virginia,” Capito said. “I respect this new process, and worked with the Appropriations Committee to ensure transparency and accountability in my requests on behalf of West Virginians.”

Charleston city officials say they plan to use their share of the congressional funding to set up a crisis intervention team.

The program will be part of Charleston’s Coordination Addiction Response Effort (CARE) office which was established in 2019 to coordinate attempts to address the impact of substance use disorder on the community.

The addition of the crisis intervention team is part of a proactive effort to fight mental illness throughout the city.

The program will be in collaboration with social services agencies, mental health professionals, and multiple faith-based communities.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reports that 82,000 West Virginians currently suffer from a serious mental illness.