Community Mental Health Reinvestment Act The Coalition is instrumental in drafting and negotiating the Community Mental Health Reinvestment Act of 1993, which adds new community-based mental health programs and services – including housing and specific programs for homeless people – by reinvesting $200 million per year in State funds saved through the closure of State inpatient psychiatric beds. This initiative moves more than $1 billion out of institutions into the community to help people with serious mental illnesses over the first five years alone, creating a new baseline of expanded community mental health services. Fighting Detention of Haitian Refugees with HIV/AIDS Coalition leaders are arrested with leaders of Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDS, and ACT UP — along with Rev. Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon, and others — for shutting down Fifth Avenue in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in protest of the Clinton Administration’s detention of Haitian refugees with HIV/AIDS in Guantanamo Bay. The act of civil disobedience is successful, and the Coalition helps find housing in NYC for the released refugees. Foster Care Rent Subsidies Expanded The Coalition wins State legislation expanding foster rent subsidies to help prevent the placement of homeless families’ children in foster homes.
