Charles “Chick” Arnold has long been considered the godfather of Arizona’s mental health care system. In 1981, then a public fiduciary, he was the lead plaintiff in Arnold v. Sarn, a class action lawsuit that claimed Maricopa County and the state of Arizona were failing people with serious mental illness. He won, and the case was ultimately upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court.

But implementing change is often harder than calling for it – and the state’s mental health system bowed under pressure from a court monitor that held providers accountable.

In 2014, worried that the Arizona legislature would gut the mental health system, parties in the lawsuit – including Arnold – scrambled to write a settlement agreement that permanently removed the court monitor, and with it, much of the transparency and accountability for which the system had become known.

Now Chick Arnold regrets that the agreement wasn’t more aggressive.

In this four part series, made possible in part by financial support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, AZCIR Contributing Editor Amy Silverman explores the history and outlines the challenges, including failures of the case management system, a debate over locked psychiatric facilities, poor conditions at the state hospital, and a lack of safe housing.