My name is Ashley, and I am a client of the Department of Mental Health.
I have been involved with DMH for about 7 years now, beginning when I was 16 years old. At that time, I had a long inpatient stay that lasted nearly four months, leading to the determination that I required a higher level of care. The hospital identified an Intensive Residential Treatment Program at a state hospital operated under DMH as the appropriate next step. In order to go there, I needed to be connected with DMH services. And so, my journey through the system began.
I spent 10 months in that placement, followed by placements in several other programs – some operated by DMH, some by the Department of Children and Families – as well as a few additional inpatient stays along the way. During that time, I was moved between placements abruptly and often with little notice. I rarely had a say in those decisions, and there was never a clear transition plan guiding where I would go next or how those moves were supposed to support my long-term stability. Instead, placements often felt reactive, driven by whatever bed in whatever program happened to be available at the time.
When I turned 18, I remained a DMH client. At that point, I had moved into a pre-independent living group home operated by a Community Service Agency for young adults ages 17 to 24. The purpose of this program was to help residents develop the skills necessary for independent living and reach a level of stability that would allow them to move into an apartment leased by the program.
In that apartment, residents still have access to all of the program’s services. Staff continue to meet with residents regularly and check in to make sure they are doing well. For many of us, the next step after succeeding there is to obtain our own apartment using a tenant-based voucher through the Department of Mental Health Rental Subsidy Program, or DMHRSP.
That is where my progress stopped.
And it did not stop because of my mental health. It did not stop because I struggled with independent living.
It stopped because of budget decisions.
DMH and the Community Service Agency determined that I was ready for the next step. I was connected with a team for DMH Adult Community Clinical Services (ACCS), who would help me search for and transition into my own apartment. We had just barely completed the intake process when, on the night of July 8th, 2025, the DMHRSP was abruptly halted. Later, I learned that this pause was the result of the program being level-funded in the fiscal year 2026 budget. With rents rising across Massachusetts and no increase in funding, the program was deemed financially unsustainable. So, it was paused.
In a single moment, when someone pressed “send” on that email, my future, which had previously felt clear and stable for the first time in my life, suddenly became uncertain. For a long time after that, there were no answers about what would happen next. Instead of continuing forward, I suddenly had to start fighting just to maintain the housing I already had.
For transitional age youth like me, this moment should have been part of a carefully planned transition into adulthood. Programs like the one I am in are built around the expectation that there will be a next step, usually a DMHRSP voucher. When that pathway disappeared overnight, there was no transition plan to replace it. Young adults who had spent years working toward independence suddenly had no clear direction, no timeline, and no stable housing pathway. Instead of moving forward, many of us were left in limbo.
And the impact goes far beyond just my situation. When a program like DMHRSP stops moving people forward, the entire system backs up. I will provide you with an example using my situation:
Because I cannot receive a voucher, I cannot move out of my apartment leased by the Community Service Agency.
Because I cannot move out, someone living in the group home cannot move into the apartment.
Because they cannot move into the apartment, someone else cannot move into the group home.
Because that bed remains occupied, someone in a higher level of care cannot step down.
Because they cannot step down, someone remains stuck in an emergency department.
And because someone is stuck in an emergency department, someone else remains at home in crisis, with nowhere to go.
This is what a “pause” really looks like in practice. And in response, DMH is scrambling to manage the consequences.
DMH is hoping the reduction of units currently housing people with DMHRSP vouchers, otherwise known as attrition, will stabilize the program’s budget and create movement in the system. So the question becomes: how much attrition can actually happen when people simply have nowhere to go?
In my own case, homeless shelters were raised as an option after the voucher pause because my housing is needed for other clients. The same conversation took place with my roommate. Think about what that means.
People who have worked through years of treatment and reached stability are now being told that the next step in their recovery may be homelessness. Other alternatives that have been suggested include programs like CHAMP and Section 8, both of which have closed waiting lists that can take years just to reopen. There are also options like Facilities Consolidation Fund units, which come online only sporadically and in very limited numbers. DMH is working to create more of those units, but that process will take years. In the meantime, people like me are left treading water. And now, the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget includes additional reductions to the DMH Rental Subsidy Program, pushing the system into a second year of instability.
What this ultimately means is that people will struggle to access services, homelessness will rise, and crises will become more frequent and harder to manage. Emergency departments and crisis systems that are already overwhelmed will feel that strain even more.
This is not simply a pause in a program. It is a disruption to the entire continuum of care. And for those of us living within this system, it is not an abstract policy discussion. It is our housing. It is our stability. And it is our future.
Written by Ashley Smith, Youth MOVE Massachusetts Youth Peer Specialist
