Mental Health Treatment Is A Key Component To Mass. Pandemic Recovery, Baker Says

Gov. Baker said Wednesday that the biggest challenge the state faces as the pandemic winds down is how to spend billions of dollars in federal funding to assure the state gets back on its feet, with an emphasis on housing and jumpstarting the behavioral health sector. Baker has been pushing his version of spending plans for nearly $5 billion from the federal government for months while lawmakers deliberate over their own plans.

Baker spoke at the annual convention of the Provider's Council, a collection of human service providers, and told them the state needs to pay more to clinicians for a behavioral and mental health system that meets the state's growing needs.

"I hope that the pandemic has opened people's eyes up to both the fact that we don't have enough people working in those spaces and part of the reason we don't have enough people working it, is because we don't pay well enough for it," Baker said.

Legislative leaders have said at least some of the federal funds will be included in a spending plan expected by the Thanksgiving holiday, after which lawmakers will recess until the new year.

Baker said he sees an opportunity to pass legislation and make progress on behavioral health services this session based on comments he's heard from legislative leaders, as long as the legislature's plans mesh with his preferred level of spending.

"If you add it all up and everybody does what I hope they do here, we could be talking about probably one of the most significant investments in the human service workforce we've seen in a long time, and I would argue that we need it," Baker said.

Baker was asked by Providers’ Council president and CEO Michael Weekes about the biggest challenges facing the Commonwealth as positive COVID cases drop and policymakers shift their focus to post-pandemic recovery.

"I think the biggest thing is making sure that we put the federal resources that have been made available to us to work in ways that will address many of the inequities and shortcomings that were laid bare by the pandemic," Baker said.

The governor said plans for "a far more robust and more adequately funded behavioral health and addiction and primary care community" were waylaid by the pandemic.

Baker also wants lawmakers to adopt his $1 billion proposal to jumpstart home construction, which includes a $300 million proposal to subsidize homeownership as a way to bolster those harmed most by the pandemic, especially communities of color.

"Massachusetts has one of the biggest gaps in the country between its white and its Black residents with respect to homeownership," Baker said.

Baker's federal aid plan also calls for major investment in climate change resilience and infrastructure spending.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified a person who asked Baker a question. It was Providers' Council president and CEO Michael Weekes, not Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers president Michael Curry.