COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Monday the award of $90 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds aimed at strengthening mental health and addiction crisis services statewide. A total of 37 regional projects will receive funding through the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

“Across Ohio, people of all ages and their families are seeking care in record numbers for substance use and mental health concerns,” DeWine said. “I am proud of the work we are doing in Ohio to make services more visible, accessible and effective for all Ohioans faced with mental health and substance use crises. By expanding access to a full array of crisis services, more Ohioans of all ages will receive the care they need in their local community so that they can recover and reach their full potential.”

OhioMHAS will oversee coordination of the grants in collaboration with county Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Boards. 

As a part of the planning process, Boards were required to work with community partners to identify local needs and gaps in their regional crisis systems and to develop collaborative projects to add capacity statewide. 

The resulting awards will fund a mix of capital improvement projects (26 projects, $74.5M) and infrastructure projects (11 projects, $15.5M), closing locally identified gaps in care such as short-term residential beds, behavioral health urgent care, mobile crisis response teams, and facility/IT improvements.

Specifically, the funding will:

Add more than 225 new residential beds for Ohioans in crisis

Establish five Behavioral Health Urgent Care clinics

Support two new Crisis Intervention and Observation units

Launch six new mobile crisis services teams

Assist with four technology upgrade projects

Support two crisis consultancy projects

The American Rescue Plan Act was passed by Congressional Democrats in 2021 and signed into law by President Joe Biden.