Gov. Gavin Newsom made a stop Wednesday, Jan. 3, at Los Angeles General Medical Center in Lincoln Heights to encourage constituents to vote yes for Proposition 1, a $6.38 billion bond measure on the March ballot that supporters say will open thousands of mental health treatment beds and build housing across the state.
Newsom said the proposition would transform California’s mental health and substance use disorder treatment systems and help address the state’s deteriorating homelessness and addiction crises.
“You’ve got to support an initiative that will create 11,000 new units of housing (and) 27,000 new treatment slots in outpatient opportunities that promotes not just solutions but promotes spending billions of dollars specifically for veterans,” said Newsom.
He was surrounded by a group of nearly 30 mental health workers, physicians, veterans, public safety officials, and firefighters. Elected officials included Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, and Los Angeles County Labor Federation president Yvonne Walker.
If passed, Proposition 1 would require counties to invest about 30% of their Mental Health Services Act tax dollars — which is about $1 billion based on last year’s revenue — on housing programs. It would require that counties spend 50% of that money on the chronically homeless or people living in tents. Counties would be allowed to use about 25% of the funding to acquire or build homes for the homeless.
The Mental Health Services Act was passed in 2004 when California’s mental health system was underfunded. In about two decades, the act has generated about $26 billion for county mental health programs.
But today, Luna said, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department operates a jail system that has become the largest mental health institution in the nation. Nearly 42% of its jail population is mentally ill, he…
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