Vice President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that $100 million will soon be available for improving access to mental health services and facilities — a move some parents of children who died in Newtown, Conn., last year called "a very important first step." The funding comes both from the new health care law and from the Department of Agriculture, which is dedicating $50 million to helping those living in rural America. The news comes as the one-year anniversary of the Newtown school shooting approaches. Biden made the announcement at the White House at a meeting with the parents of some of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, and in interviews with NBC News, some of them suggested better mental health care could help prevent such violence. "We still have a long way to go — it's a drop in the ocean — but it's progress," said Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan died at Sandy Hook.
