In 2024, the Arizona Mad Moms “took the Capitol by storm,” passing four new Arizona laws relating to Serious Mental Illness (SMI). In one year, we have grown from a few dozen “mothers who are mad” to more than 400 families.

According to our governor, government agencies, and even the ACLU, Arizona has plenty of psychiatric bed capacity. We don’t.

Arizona is overflowing with private psychiatric hospitals for “voluntary” patients needing short-term stays. These individuals are well enough to seek treatment and recognize their illness. Many patients are so-called “treatment-hoppers” effectively utilizing hospitals for housing. Arizona tolerates this problem because of both the affordable housing shortage and the massive influx of federal Medicaid funds we receive for these patients.

Alternatively, Arizona has a severe shortage of beds for dangerous and disabled SMI individuals who require months or years to stabilize on antipsychotic and mood stabilizing medications. This population is treated at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH), Civil Mental Health Court Hospitals (CMHC), Amended Court-Ordered Treatment (ACOT) facilities, or Secure Behavioral Health Residential Facilities (SBHRF). Arizona has the fewest state hospital beds per capita of any state and has a dangerous shortage of CMHC, ACOT, and SBHRF beds. These facts from our experience are either ignored or disputed by our state agencies.

The bed shortage is masked by unacceptably short durations of stays for CMHC and ACOT beds. Our state agencies are looking at hospital wait times and wait lists instead of patient outcomes following discharge. Arizona Mad Moms have witnessed the definition of “stable” currently applied to court-ordered patients continuing to creep backward. This has placed increasingly dangerous burdens on ill-equipped outpatient SMI clinics, law enforcement, and unpaid mothers to provide treatment, housing and support.

However, the biggest problem masking Arizona’s extreme bed shortage is the thousands of SMI individuals incarcerated because of untreated illness. Failure to provide sustained competent SMI treatment and support is causing tragic outcomes, with mothers, law enforcement and taxpayers paying a heavy price.

Arizona Mad Moms have experienced an unacceptable rate of caregiver assaults, even homicide at the hands of untreated SMI individuals. On Feb. 2, 2024, Jim Miller killed his parents after his SMI outpatient clinic failed to enforce or renew his court-ordered treatment. Miller previously assaulted his parents due to extreme paranoid delusions about them. Despite this history, Miller’s clinic allowed him to discontinue his antipsychotic medications.

Lauren Levinson stabbed and injured her parents on June 22, 2024, after her SMI clinic stopped providing services, for unknown reasons. Alejandro Gonzalez decapitated his mother on Sept. 27, 2024, following his release from jail to his mother’s care instead of transferring to a psychiatric hospital. Saul Bal tragically killed a police officer on Sept. 3, 2024. Bal’s disordered social media posts referenced diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and “hearing voices.”

Seven agencies failed to treat Joshua Fox for schizophrenia before hallucinations of “morse code signals from car engines” instructed him to kill his father, John Fox, in 2021. Arizona Mad Moms was founded following his death in Alhambra prison on Dec. 23, 2023.

Arizona’s psychiatric bed shortage is a public health emergency. In 2025, the Arizona Mad Moms will be testifying on several bills related to treatment, services, and supported housing for the sickest psychiatric patients. We hope you will listen.

Rachel Streiff is a co-founder of Arizona Mad Moms.