This year, ONE Northside concluded the work of its Mental Health Justice team as a core organizing issue. Mental health justice has always been and will always be a core value for our organizing work and will shape every campaign we take on. There is no community safety without mental health justice. There is no housing justice without mental health justice. There is no education justice without mental health justice. It impacts every facet of our work.
In January we gathered with team members, former MHJ organizers, and longtime leaders to reflect back on everything this amazing team accomplished in the 12 years it worked on campaigns!
In 2012 the Mental Health Justice Team was formed with the intention of focusing on CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) and accountability within the Chicago Police Department.
During our 2014 Convention we turned up the heat to put pressure on public officials to push for this reform, including our leader Pastor Fred Kinsey calling out Chief Gulliford, the manager of the CIT program, by name during the convention, who was seated in the audience. You can watch that below:
After two years of hard-fought campaigning, we won! Our Mental Health Justice Team won a commitment from the Chicago Police Department to increase officers trained in Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) to 400 per year, in order to decrease the number of people in mental health crisis being arrested and jailed. Though this commitment from CPD was a major victory the Mental Health Justice Team did not stop there, though. This was just the beginning!
Beginning in 2015, the team began the Personal Needs Assessment Raise Campaign. People in facilities run by Illinois for those with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses were living on just $30 a month. ONE Northside organized with those directly affected by this issue to speak out about how it affected them, using the slogan “$1 a day? NO WAY! Time to raise the PNA!”
After two years of campaigning the team was able to raise the PNA from $30 to $60 in 2017. As a result, over 15,000 people living in Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Facilities and in the developmental disability community got a raise due to this budget increase. Another big win for the Mental Health Justice Team!
After winning this campaign the team moved on to Medicaid reimbursement. Beginning in 2018 the Mental Health Justice Team started working with legislators in Springfield co-writing a bill to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate, the first increase to the rate in over a decade. Healthcare and Family Services received $40 million dollars in new money for improved access to psychiatric treatment. HFS also received an additional $7 million toward enhanced rates for mental health and substance use treatment services in underserved communities. As a result, a significant increase in reimbursements rates was included in the state budget for the 2019 fiscal year.
The next year, the MHJ pivoted their focus to the city elections by holding community listening sessions focused on the relationship between housing and mental health as well as canvassing. 2019 also marks the beginning of the Bring Chicago Home initiative, an effort to combat homelessness in Chicago. Working with the newly elected city officials, the MHJ team joined the citywide campaign to reopen closed mental health clinics, Treatment Not Trauma.
In 2020, the Mental Health Justice Team shifted its focus to Medicare expansion and the Fair Tax, continuing its fight for healthcare justice. Through relentless organizing and advocacy, the team successfully pressured all seven of Chicago’s congressional representatives—Schakowsky, Garcia, Rush, Kelly, Davis, Newman, and Quigley—to sign on to the Medicare for All bill. This commitment from lawmakers marked a significant step toward ensuring that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.
While the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the team adapted, finding new ways to organize safely while maintaining momentum. Despite the challenges, MHJ deepened its commitment to Care Over Cost and Medicare for All, bringing people together outdoors to continue building collective power. The movement pressed forward, refusing to let a global crisis stall the fight for healthcare justice.
Then, in 2022, a major victory! The team organized to support a young woman named Erin whose insurance provider, Ambetter, had charged her $1000 for a routine blood test that should have been covered. Through petitions, narrative campaigning and a direct action at Ambetter headquarters, we won! Ambetter overturned the $1000 charge and revised it to the correct amount, proving that organizing gets results! This win underscored the power of community organizing in challenging unjust healthcare practices and ensuring people get the care they deserve.
In 2023, MHJ ramped up its Care Over Cost campaign, taking direct action to hold insurance companies accountable. The team also co-hosted a powerful town hall featuring the Treatment Not Trauma initiative, amplifying the urgent need for non-police crisis response. That advocacy paid off in a big way—another victory! The Treatment Not Trauma coalition secured funding to reopen three public mental health clinics in Chicago, a milestone in the fight for accessible, community-based care. These clinics officially began reopening in 2024, a testament to the years of relentless organizing and the unwavering dedication of the movement.
This post can only scratch the surface of the many ways that the Mental Health Justice organizers, leaders, and team members have impacted our work and left a huge mark on the North Side and all of Illinois. And they will continue to do so for years to come! Team members are working now on the Building Safe Communities team, Housing Justice team, and throughout our organization. We are so proud of all we have accomplished, and we know that people working together is our strongest way to win change for our communities! We will always fight for Mental Health Justice!
