NC Gov. Josh Stein speaks in Greenville about mental health treatment and public safety on Oct. 9, 2025 (Photo: Screenshot)
Gov. Josh Stein said he will soon have a “comprehensive mental health plan” to send to the legislature, following several recent violent deaths charged to people with mental illnesses.
Some elements of his plan will require funding, Stein said, but some won’t. “We’ll have it all laid out for the General Assembly’s consideration,” he said.
Republican legislative leaders did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The legislature passed a crime bill last month named for Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed while riding the Charlotte light rail. Decarlos Brown, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was charged.
Nigel Edge of Oak Island was charged in a mass shooting that killed three people in Southport and injured others. The local district attorney said at Edge’s first court appearance that Edge has a traumatic brain injury and mental health issues, WECT reported.
Improved access to mental health care will help communities feel safer and offer more help to people with serious mental health challenges, he said Thursday.
“Here in North Carolina, we’ve recently suffered two prominent tragic reminders of just how important it is that we do everything in our power to get treatment to people who need it with serious mental illness,” Stein said at a press conference Thursday at mental health provider Integrated Family Services in Greenville.
Most people with mental illnesses do not harm others, Stein said, but “we know that some can.”
Too many people have dangerous obsessions, exhibit threatening behaviors, and pose a risk to others, he said.
The new law includes a provision requiring arresting officers to transport people to hospitals for mental health exams when those arrested are repeat offenders who have previously been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, NC Newsline has reported.
Stein signed the crime bill last week, but criticized it for not funding new mental health treatment.
“It’s important to get mental health treatment to people when they have their first interactions with law enforcement, provide mental health treatment to people who are incarcerated, and help people once they are released,” Stein said.
Mobile crisis teams of mental health specialists should be expanded statewide, he said, and the state needs to tackle staffing shortages that prevent admitting more patients to psychiatric hospitals.
State hospitals have enough staff for only 550 of the 900 hospital beds available, he said.
“Let’s make these jobs much better paid and more attractive so that we can ramp up the state’s capacity to meet the needs of our people,” Stein said.
Stein also once again called on the legislature to increase funding for Medicaid.
Medicaid is the largest payer of mental health treatment costs. But in North Carolina, the safety net program has cut payments to health care providers because, according to Stein, the legislature did not provide enough funding to make it through the year without reducing payment rates.
The legislature considered bills to provide more Medicaid funding, but did not pass one. Republicans in the House and Senate are hung up on the unrelated issue of money for a children’s hospital planned for Apex.
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