Gov. Gavin Newsom gathered with city leaders and public safety officials Wednesday to appeal for support for his administration. Suggestion 1an overhaul of the state's mental health system that will be on the ballot in California's March 5 primary election.
This measure would reform California. mental health services act It would also create a $6.4 billion bond to provide 10,000 new behavioral health beds. The plan would direct existing funding to expand substance abuse and mental health services.
“We can't keep doing what we've been doing,” Newsom said Wednesday at Los Angeles General Medical Center, where mental health workers, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna I was present.
“Everything that people have told us they desperately need and expect from us, we have incorporated into Prop. 1,” Newsom said.
California's state legislature voted in September to put Mr. Newsom's plan on the ballot with rare bipartisan support.
Supporters say the proposal would bring much-needed improvements to the mental health services law that voters approved in 2004. The law would impose a 1% tax on personal income over $1 million annually to fund county mental health services.
Proposition 1 would direct 30% of that funding, or about $1 billion a year, to supportive housing for people with severe mental illness or substance use disorders.
Bass said the new funding model targets the root causes of homelessness, rather than just treating the symptoms.
“We can take people off the streets, but we have to look at why they became homeless in the first place,” she said Wednesday.
Opponents of the proposal argue it would disrupt mental health services already run by the county. Californians oppose Proposition 1 Director Paul Simmons said he believes the Mental Health Services Act is still valid and that adding more behavioral health beds is not the answer.
“I believe it will do more harm than good,” Simmons said. “They're not building housing for the homeless, they're just locking them up.”
Simmons said the diversion of $1 billion in funding means a significant reduction in mental health resources for the county.
Polls show that Californians primarily support Proposition 1.according to December voting Two-thirds of voters said they would vote in favor of the proposal, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Another poll conducted in November, co-sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Government with the Los Angeles Times, found that 60% of likely voters supported the ballot measure. Only 15% of voters had heard about the proposal beforehand.
As the primary sponsor of the ballot measure, Newsom has worked to garner support from a wide range of city and state officials. The governor said the measure, if approved, would allow California to make measurable progress on its homelessness crisis.
