Saturday Stats

66%: Reduction in the number of involuntary commitments to Ohio’s psychiatric hospitals, from 2019 through 2023. At first glance, that remarkable drop in the number of Ohioans being forced into treatment may seem like a positive sign — but the truth is much more complicated. Kathryn Poe digs into the contributing factors in their new report, Involuntary commitment and the crisis care gap. The report includes recommendations that would improve access to mental health treatment before a crisis, and explains how proposed legislation fails to do so.

1,100: Maximum number of people Ohio’s six psychiatric hospitals that manage inpatient involuntary commitment cases can hold. More than nine of every 10 beds is occupied by someone “sent there by the courts to be restored to competency so they can stand trial” — which should be done in outpatient facilities for those out on bail, or in jails for those detained pre-trial. That leaves fewer than 110 beds for other Ohioans in crisis — a direct result of the state’s failure to adequately fund mental health treatment in our communities and in jails.

580: Number of people surveyed for Phase 2 of our study of community members’ experiences with crisis response in and around Cleveland. (Phase 1, described in “Talk to me like a regular person, not a criminal,” was completed in 2022.) Our study centers the experiences of people who are directly impacted by the current system for response to behavioral and mental health crises — those who have the most at stake in decisions about that system’s future. It’s their voices you’ll hear in our new report from Bree Easterling, Piet van Lier, and REACH’s Cori Schleiffer.

52%: Share of Phase 2 survey participants who said they had experienced homelessness. Among our recommendations for the city and county’s care response pilot program is for teams to develop relationships with — and act on feedback from — individuals experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity and especially with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. In fact, that’s one of the primary lessons from “Make sure to treat people how you want to be treated”: A successful care response program must build in conversations with effected people, and must use their input to guide program development

3: Number of key differences between the citizen-led ballot initiative to raise Ohio’s minimum wage, and a weaker proposal from state legislators, now in consideration. Michael Shields briefly explains those differences in this video, and does so at greater length in this one. Both are among the bevy of content on our new Raise the Wage landing page, where we’ll be adding resources as the fight for $15 continues.

$26,050: Annual income below which an Ohio household owes no income tax. That means non-refundable tax credits — including Ohio’s current EITC — do nothing to help them. A new proposal would change that, by making the EITC refundable. We like that idea, and said so in recent testimony from Bailey Williams. But here’s the catch: It’s part of the same bill that would make the minimum wage increase slower, weaker, and less effective. We suggested some ways to improve that part of the bill in testimony from Michael Shields. In fact, Bailey, Michael and Zach Schiller sat side-by-side to deliver invited testimony to the committee considering that bill. You can watch the whole thing in this video from the Ohio Channel.

While they were in the Statehouse, Bailey and Zach dropped in on the Joint Committee on Property Tax Review and Reform, to whom Zach delivered testimony in favor of a property tax circuit breaker to prevent homeowners and renters from paying too much of their income in property tax, and a few changes that will make tax abatement in the state both more transparent and accountable. You can read Zach’s testimony here, and you can watch a recording here.

Action items

Use Red Wine & Blue’s simple tool to find a location near you to pick up and/or drop off petitions for the minimum wage initiative and the fair maps initiative.

Listen to Season 2 of What’s Good Ohio?! (The podcast is taking its summer vacation, but Season 3 is already in the works!)

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