For more than three years now, Gazette reporters have been tracking the crisis in mental health care in Colorado. In a nutshell, our system is broken.
Colorado has the nation’s highest rate of adult mental illness and lowest access to care. Our reporters found that nearly 450,000 Coloradans aren’t being treated for mental illness.
A six-month investigation by Susan Greene and the Colorado News Collaborative, of which The Gazette is a member, amplified that reporting recently with revelations that Colorado’s 17 community mental health centers, which receive $437 million in state tax dollars per year to serve as the core of Colorado’s safety net, are treating thousands fewer patients now than before the pandemic began. They also turn away some of the most vulnerable and at-risk Coloradans, which means they have nowhere to go.