Missouri Coalition for Community Behavioral Healthcare

Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) emerged as the result of federal legislation in 1963: Public Law 88-164, “The Community Mental Health Centers Act,” a long overdue response to a critical need. As history has documented, the mentally ill—for decades—had been scorned, warehoused and abused. All over this country, many thousands of patients found themselves enduring indefinitely the indignities and despair associated with the crowded wards of our nation’s mental institutions.