October 16, 2025 | Washington, DC
Faces & Voices of Recovery joins a growing chorus of national advocates, lawmakers, and community leaders in sounding the alarm over the dismantling of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), following a powerful bipartisan letter sent to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on October 15.
The letter, led by Representatives Paul Tonko, Don Beyer, Madeleine Dean, Lori Trahan, Brittany Pettersen, and Andrea Salinas, condemns the administration’s sweeping staff reductions and restructuring of SAMHSA, which have reportedly slashed the agency’s workforce by more than half since the start of the Trump administration. These actions, the lawmakers argue, directly undermine Congress’s intent and jeopardize the nation’s ability to respond to the ongoing mental health and substance use crises.
“These cuts fly in the face of everything Congress has worked on to prioritize the focus on mental health and substance use disorder, to reduce stigma and to expand access to prevention, recovery, and treatment,” the letter states.
Faces & Voices of Recovery echoes this urgent call. SAMHSA has long been the backbone of the nation’s behavioral health infrastructure—administering critical grant programs, supporting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and ensuring access to evidence-based prevention, treatment, and recovery services. The agency’s abrupt downsizing and absorption into the newly formed Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) threatens to erase decades of progress.
“We are deeply concerned that the dismantling of SAMHSA will leave millions of Americans without access to the services they need to survive and thrive,” said Patty McCarthy, CEO of Faces & Voices of Recovery. “This is not just a bureaucratic reshuffling—it’s a direct attack on the recovery community and the public health systems that support them.”
The consequences are already being felt. Reports indicate that entire regional offices have been shuttered, key staff overseeing grant programs and crisis response have been terminated, and states are scrambling to adjust to the sudden loss of federal support.
Faces & Voices of Recovery calls on HHS and the Administration to:
1. Immediately reinstate SAMHSA staff who were terminated without due process.
2. Halt the dissolution of SAMHSA and preserve its statutory authority and mission.
3. Engage with recovery stakeholders to ensure that any future reforms strengthen—not weaken—our behavioral health system.
We urge the public, recovery advocates, and elected officials to stand with us in defending SAMHSA and the millions of lives it touches. Now is not the time to dismantle the very agency tasked with addressing one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time.
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