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Part of the act's promise was fulfilled in that deinstitutionalization did, in fact, occur on a massive scale, but an adequate number of community-treatment alternatives did not follow. Only half of the proposed CMHCs were built, and none received the full amount of funding indicated in the act or funds to function over the long term. In addition, many CMHCs did not want to treat patients with severe illnesses. During the Reagan administration, the funding was converted into mental health block grants that went to the states to distribute.
To read more about the legacy of the 1963 mental health act, see the essay "The Next 50 Years: A New Vision of 'Community Mental Health' ” by former member of Congress Patrick Kennedy and psychiatrists John Greden, M.D, and Michelle Riba, M.D., in the October American Journal of Psychiatry.