Group Home Funding May Run Out

About 2,000 people with severe mental illness are facing eviction from group homes at the end of the year. That was the message from group home residents and staff and mental health advocates who rallied at the state Capitol yesterday. A change in Medicaid rules means residential facilities for the mentally disabled will lose some federal funding at the end of the year. State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year providing replacement funds for adult care homes...but group homes were left out. Ann Akland is a board member and past president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Wake County.

Ann Akland: "It's gonna take a legislative change. So the governor's gonna have to call some emergency session, and the legislature's gonna have to come up with a solution. Or they're gonna be these people who are desperate to have a home."

Akland says group home residents are often the most severely disabled. She says if nothing is done by January first, residents can buy some time by appealing their Medicaid cuts.