In Los Angeles County, the need for mental health services is great. The funding is available. The infrastructure has been created in the form of mobile response teams designed to aide the homeless, foster youth and K-12 students.
But the problem is, workers are scarce. Vacancies have hampered response teams from rolling out to help people in distress on 911 calls, and from addressing the mental health of the homeless. Of the 69,000 unhoused in L.A. County, 25% to 50% have a mental illness, according to various survey data.
For more than a year, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has been on a recruiting binge. They’ve dangled carrots such as signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness and streamlined applications for those who join the mental health teams — with very limited success.
As of April 4, gaping holes in mental health teams remained, which prompted the Board of Supervisors to adopt more job incentives.
“We’ve implemented signing bonuses, student loan forgiveness,” said Fourth District Supervisor and Board Chair Janice Hahn at the Tuesday board meeting. “But none of this has been enough. We have too many vacancies across our mental health response teams.”
The board passed a motion to begin a pilot program that will offer 14 incentives.
The motion stated, “For too long, people experiencing a mental health crisis and their loved ones have only been able to call 911 and get a response from law enforcement or paramedics. These responses can not only be ineffective, but can also exacerbate the situation and lead to negative outcomes.”
The vacancies in mental health response teams take many forms and carry consequences.
The lack of personnel on mobile crisis teams delays their response times for several hours and can prevent the rollout of street teams that pair with law enforcement when someone is suffering full-on mental distress.
Mental Evaluation Teams (MET) respond to 911 calls involving people with mental illness,…
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