Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to transform California’s mental health care system faces its final hurdle in the state Legislature this week, as lawmakers decide whether to enact a pair of measures that would boost treatment on the March 2024 ballot of substance abuse and generate $4.68 billion to build facilities to provide care for 10,000 patients

statewide

.

The governor and his aides have spent months addressing concerns from counties and child and family advocates about how his overhaul could shift money away from existing services. The proposals are expected to pass, but tensions along the way underscore the challenges Newsom faces as he tries to address a homelessness crisis that has scarred the state and could define his political legacy.

The Democratic governor has faced resistance from all sides, including from some of the most liberal interest groups in his own party, in his search for a new model.

“There is no blueprint for solving homelessness and if there was, it would have been done a long time ago,” said Anthony York, a spokesman for Newsom. “There are some who are concerned about change, but the governor has taken the lead in saying we need change to serve the thousands of people living on the streets.”

The governor’s plan, first unveiled in March, aims to reform California’s two-decade-old Mental Health Services Act.

Original

The law, which was approved by voters in 2004, introduced a 1%

per cent

tax on personal income over $1 million annually to expand California’s behavioral health system to improve care and support for people with serious mental health conditions. The money went directly to the provinces to spend on mental health programs.

Under Senate Bill 326, Newsom is asking the legislature, and then voters, to reconfigure the mental health law and set aside 30% of the tax, or about $1 billion a year, for supportive housing for people with serious mental illness or substance abuse. .

Assembly Bill 531, which would also go before voters if passed into law this week, creates a bond to generate at least $4.68 billion in one-time funding, largely to build 10,000 new behavioral health beds under a streamlined environmental permitting process . Both measures would appear on the presidential election ballot next spring.

The governor says the changes are necessary to modernize the MHSA to better meet today’s needs and serve Californians with substance use disorders, which the state estimates to be 1 in 10 adults, as well as those with serious mental health conditions, a population of 1 in 10 adults. about 1 in 20. The legislation cites research

that the University of California,

UC San Francisco found that 82% of homeless Californians reported having a serious mental illness and that 65% regularly used illegal drugs at some point.

The proposal builds on this

Newsom is his

Continued efforts to expand access to behavioral health care services and build more supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, which remains a deep-seated problem for California and its Democratic governor despite the billions the state has spent to address the problem to grab.

Conservative media and his Republican rivals repeatedly cast the image of encampments along California sidewalks as an example of the deterioration of public safety and law and order under his watch in the Golden State. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

,

a Republican presidential candidate, released a campaign video in June from San Francisco, where Newsom was once mayor, basing the left-wing policies he says have led

pipe

to rampant drug use and people defecating in the streets.

Newsom has acknowledged the pressure he feels to deliver on homelessness in his second term to counter the right’s narrative.

Last year, Newsom championed the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court to require counties to establish courts with

the

the authority to order treatment plans for people suffering from schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. Counties had expressed concerns about the lack of funding to expand housing and beds to treat CARE Court participants. Civil rights groups and disability advocates lobbied against the plan, which they say would criminalize homelessness.

Concerns about his mental health plan this year focused on Newsom’s call to shift money from existing services and programs funded by the law to housing. Advocates worried that the new focus on housing, combined with an end to mandatory mental health care allocation for children and families, could leave one of the state’s most vulnerable populations shortchanged in the squeeze on public dollars.

“Counties are under a lot of pressure to do something about what we’re seeing in camps and that is adults,” said Adrienne Shilton, director of public policy and strategy for the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. “Homeless youth that our organizations work with, youth at risk, or families with children, they are not in camps. They are a less visible homeless population.”

Shilton said the governor’s office ultimately agreed to set aside about half of a county’s early intervention funds specifically for adults and youth under 25, which was changed in the proposal. But no such guaranteed allocation for housing assistance exists, she said.

Shilton pointed out that many children and families experiencing homelessness do not suffer from drug addiction or mental health issues, but instead find themselves without housing due to affordability issues in a state with an increasingly high cost of living. Without a blanket mandate for money for these populations, the problem the governor is trying to address could only get worse in the future.

“We will create the next generation of homeless people,” Shilton said. “That’s what we don’t want.”

Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno) also raised questions about the lack of funding allocations for children and youth during a recent committee hearing. He said that setting aside 10% of funding for children through other programs, such as housing assistance and Project Homekey, for example, has led to a 21% decrease in child homelessness.

“I believe that as a state we are in crisis for our children and adolescents and transition-age youth, and I believe that we need space within many of the funding sources to effectively prioritize and address issues such as child homelessness and address mental health needs. ,” Arambula said in one

a

interview.

Newsom’s office acknowledged the opposition from some advocates, but there is also undeniable frustration with the status quo among millions of Californians.

Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist, said it’s often difficult for advocates to be open to change, even when something isn’t working.

‘This is a universe that does not exist

An

has touched us for a long time,” Maviglio said. “He should be given credit for not shrugging his shoulders or not acknowledging the problem. The downside is that this is not a quick fix. I mean, it’s going to take well over a decade to see measurable results because the whole system has to be turned upside down.”