“This lame-duck Justice Department, with its track record in political law, is choosing to rush to the courts rather than allow agile and cooperative communication from state agency leaders during the waning days of the Biden administration,” he said in a statement. I chose it.”
McMaster’s office acknowledged that the state’s system is “broken and in need of restructuring.” The governor plans to address this in his State of the State address next month, indicating that the state Department of Mental Health and the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs will become new cabinet-level agencies.
Working with these agencies is often problematic because many of these patients are dual-diagnosed and need both mental health and disability services, Connor said.
“It makes it harder to get services,” she says. “Government agencies are fighting over who is responsible for caring for these patients.”
The South Carolina Department of Mental Health does not comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman Tracy Lapointe said. The agency plans to request an additional $3 million in a future budget request to expand services to help patients live independent, community-based lives.
Connor said there’s nothing wrong with group homes, known as community-based care facilities. These can be a suitable intermediate step for mentally ill patients discharged from state hospitals, for example. But she said patients are unable to find support to live independently in the community because of a lack of services there.
Conner said many of the patients are low-income and among the people in the state struggling with a lack of affordable housing. That’s why they get stuck in group homes, she says.
“Once you get into it, it’s almost impossible to get out of it,” Connor said.
South Carolina joins a long list of cases being sued by the Justice Department over the state’s requirements for mental health and special needs patients and lack of community support. This includes neighboring states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. These states have spent more than a decade, in some cases, and tens of millions of dollars trying to achieve compliance.
