SAMHSA’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Seeks $8.1 Billion to Support Mental Health and Substance Use Services Across US (2024)

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 President’s Budget includes $8.1 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), $612 million more than the agency’s FY 2023 enacted budget. The FY 2025 budget proposal continues to support the President’s Unity Agenda to address the nation’s ongoing mental health crisis and overdose epidemic.

“SAMHSA’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget includes vital investments to addressing our country’s ongoing mental health crisis and overdose epidemic by funding programs that promote mental health, prevent substance misuse, provide treatment and recovery supports, while ensuring equitable access and better outcomes for Americans,” said Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., the Health and Human Services’ Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the leader of SAMHSA.

SAMHSA’s FY 2025 budget proposal includes resources needed to increase access to suicide prevention and mental health services by serving anyone, any time, from anywhere across the nation through continued expansion of the 988 and Behavioral Health Crisis Services Programs. Given the approximately 8% increase in older adult suicide in 2022, the budget proposes a new grant program in conjunction with the Administration for Community Living (ACL) to reduce suicide among this growing population.

The budget also proposes to change ‘abuse’ to ‘use’ in the agency’s and its centers’ names, to reduce the historic stigma, and to specifically authorize the agency’s Office of Recovery. It expands resources for harm reduction activities, women’s behavioral health services, and treatment for substance use disorder.

Investments to enhance access to suicide prevention and mental health services include:

• Community Mental Health Services Block Grant — $1 billion. The two-year funding to states includes a 10% set-aside for evidence-based programs for individuals with early serious mental illness (SMI), including first-episode psychosis; a proposal to increase the crisis care set-aside from 5 to 10%; and a new 10% set-aside for evidence-based programs for prevention and early intervention to support at-risk youth and adults with mental illness.
• Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) — $413 million for state and local governments, as well as nonprofit organizations, to increase access to high-quality, comprehensive mental health services in communities across the nation. The budget proposal will further expand the range, quality, and capacity of services in CMHCs, building on the $825 million in funding directed to CMHCs in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations.
• Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) — $450 million, an increase of $65 million, to further increase access to and coordination of care to enable individuals to receive timely diagnosis, treatment, and recovery support services. The budget proposal also includes a request for authority to develop a process for accrediting CCBHCs.
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — $601 million, an increase of $100 million, to be dispersed to states, local crisis centers, tribes and tribal organizations, and the system administrator, to scale and strengthen the Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline has received more than 8.6 million calls, texts and chats since it launched in July 2022.
• Project Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education (AWARE) — $190 million, an increase of $50 million, for this program which identifies children and youth in need of mental health services in their schools. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated anxiety, depression, loneliness, and negative emotions and behaviors among young people—with many saying they have considered or attempted suicide. In FY 2025, SAMHSA projects these funds will help to identify and refer approximately 135,000 school-aged youth to mental health and related services.
• Children’s Mental Health Services — $180 million, an increase of $50 million, to provide mental health services to children and youth, from birth through age 21, at risk for or with serious emotional disturbances (SED), and their families. This program helps to prepare children and youth at risk for or with SED for successful transition to adulthood and assumption of adult roles and responsibilities.
• Mental Health Crisis Response Partnership Program — $40 million, an increase of $20 million, to create and enhance mobile crisis response teams to divert adults, children, and youth experiencing mental health crises from law enforcement in high-need communities. In FY 2025, SAMHSA estimates this program will screen approximately 14,000 people for services.
• Older Adult Suicide Prevention — $1.75 million to fund this new grant program to be implemented in conjunction with ACL to decrease the number of suicides and suicide attempts by older adults.

Investments focused on preventing substance use and overdose include:

• State Opioid Response (SOR) grant program — $1.6 billion, an increase of $20 million, which disperses funding to states and territories to address the public health crisis caused by escalating opioid misuse and substance use disorder across the nation. Of the $1.6 billion, $60 million would go to the corresponding Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) grant program. Since the SOR program began, approximately 1.2 million individuals have received treatment services, including more than a half-million who have received an FDA-approved medication for opioid use disorder. The budget increase would enhance states’ ability to address stimulants (such as methamphetamine and cocaine), as well as other issues related to the overdose epidemic.
• Community Harm Reduction and Engagement Initiatives — $10 million to this new program that would fund state, local and territory governments, as well as tribal and nongovernmental efforts to address the gap in substance use care by supporting broad-based community harm reduction activities and linkages to services. The program would reach approximately 181,000 people with harm reduction and low-threshold treatment services through resources for community-based organizations, community harm reduction and engagement expansion grants, and a technical assistance center.
• Pregnant and Postpartum Women Program — $44 million, an increase of $5 million, for the program, which uses a family-centered approach to provide comprehensive residential and outpatient substance use disorder treatment, prevention, and recovery support services for pregnant and postpartum women, their minor children, and other family members.

The budget also seeks $3.5 million for a Women’s Behavioral Health Technical Assistance Center, which would serve as a national system of clinical consultation and technical assistance for health providers of various disciplines spanning topics across the lifespan within the field of women’s mental health and substance use.

View the SAMHSA budget proposal.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. To learn how to get support for mental health, drug or alcohol issues, visit FindSupport.gov. If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov or call 800-662-HELP (4357).