Hundreds of people with mental illness live in boarding homes scattered across the Birmingham metro area, and starting this week, there’s effectively no inspection program to make sure those homes are clean and safe. The public health department has run out of money, and an October 1st deadline for new funding came and went over the weekend. Now, mental health advocates are ratcheting up their campaign to get local leaders to foot the bill.

As part of our continuing series, Making Sense of Mental Health,
WBHM’s Tanya Ott spoke with Shannon Weston, executive director of NAMI Alabama and Dr. Tom Hobbs, co-chairman of the blue ribbon committee tasked with finding a solution to the problem.