Baker has quietly proposed an array of mental health care initiatives, including better training for police and a boost in spending on health care coverage for low-income people.
What he hasn’t been prepared to do, thus far, is provide much in the way of public leadership, or to speak to the issue.
“I don’t think the administration is doing enough or saying enough at all,” said Cindy Friedman, the longtime chief of staff to former state senator Ken Donnelly, an Arlington Democrat and champion of mental health care reform who died in April.