Bill to House Mentally Ill Passes Reps.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives last week unanimously approved a comprehensive bill to increase capital funding for state mental health facilities.

The bill, which is currently being reviewed by a senate committee, should pass the upper body this spring, legislators said yesterday.

The bill is designed to address what legislators called a serious mental health problem in the state. State officials said that more than 50 percent of homeless people are mentally ill and Massachusetts has inadequate facilities to meet their needs.

The bill calls for a $352 million budget to improve hospitals and facilities for the mentally ill. It is the first proposal for improvements in facilities since a smaller bill passed in 1983.

The proposal was initiated by Gov. Michael S. Dukakis in his capital budget proposal last year, and revised and expanded by State Rep. Richard A. Voke (D-Chelsea) and other members of the House this year.

"There is a complete need to revamp the whole [mental health] system in the state," said Voke's Press Secretary Norman R. Lombardi.

"Massachusetts was ranked 41 in the nation last year for quality care of the mentally ill," said Lombardi. "We need to develop a program to fill the gaps--and now we have a complete proposal," he said.

The governor wants Massachusetts to once again become a national leader in mental health care, said Andrew Dreyfus, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Human Services. Dreyfus was referring to the fact that in the 1860s Massachusetts was the first state in the Union to provide public mental health hospitals.

If passed, the bill will allocate $96.2 million to hospitals in the metropolitan Boston area for capital improvements, such as construction, renovation, and lease or purchase of property. This will create an additional 400 hospital beds, and 970 units of residential housing.

One of the main objectives of the bill is to alleviate the problem of homelessness by creating sufficient housing for the large number of homeless who are diagnosed as mentally ill.

"To allow the seriously mentally ill to wander the street is apalling," Lombardi said.