People with mental disorders are a special group that are at high risk of living in poverty. China's legal system concerning mental health is far from adequate in both theoretical and practical aspects, such as legislative concepts, institutional structure, legal norms, and targeted poverty reduction through health care. The improvement of China's legal system concerning mental health needs to focus on protecting the rights and interests of people with mental disorders and take the following measures, including the precise poverty control for people with mental disorders, addressing comprehensive empowerment, and strengthening the subjective status of people with mental disorders, promoting the "community based" model of mental health governance based on social return, improving the financing mechanism and making use of the advantages of local governance.