The prevalence of mental health conditions is significant, especially in contrast to the nationwide shortage of mental health professionals. One in five Americans lives with a mental health condition and approximately 1 in 25 adults experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that interferes with or limits one or more major life activities, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Institute of Mental Health.Mental health resources are neither readily available nor accessible for patients needing timely diagnoses and treatment. Funding for mental health services has been slashed. The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors indicated that states cut $5 billion in mental health services from 2009 to 2012 and nearly 10 percent of the nations public psychiatric hospital beds have been eliminated. More than half of American adults with mental illness did not receive treatment in 2016, leading to unfortunate consequences. In an article in USA Today, Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa. stated, “We have replaced the hospital bed with the jail cell, the homeless shelter and the coffin. How is that compassionate?”

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