Proposition 1 would force deep cuts to mental health services

Protesters Natalie Conrad and Debi Davis attempt to mingle with pedestrians during the Vote No Proposition 1 protest on the west steps of the Capitol on February 1.

We are people living with serious mental illness. We are clients and providers of California’s public mental health system. We are voting “no” on Proposition 1, Mental Health Funding Reform and Bond Measures, on the March ballot.

Proposition 1 would undo what this community has fought for and accomplished over the past 20 years. In 2004, we jointly drafted the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), which received over 370,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot and passed. For the first time in California’s history, our public mental health system had a dedicated funding source for the services we wanted and designed, and in amounts that exceeded what Medi-Cal would cover.

Currently, MHSA is administered at the community level. Counties receive funding based on a largely open-ended formula that allows them to design programs and disburse funds that involve people living with severe mental illness and their families, including members of marginalized communities. It has been demanded. MHSA funds highly effective and unique services such as peer support, where people recovering from severe mental illness act as providers for each other. Prevention and early intervention funding went toward community-defined services for people who cannot access them through traditional pathways for behavioral health.

Now comes Proposition 1, which was developed behind closed doors and would nearly obliterate the MHSA with a slew of new state mandates and top-down controls. Behind the campaign slogan “Treatment, not tents” lies devastating cuts to voluntary mental health services for the most severely mentally ill and unprecedented contributions of tax dollars to build privatized facilities. is hidden.

If Prop. 1 passes, California counties will be forced to cut basic mental health services such as outpatient treatment, crisis services, and peer support services that keep high-risk clients stable and save lives. He testified that it would be done. Proposition 1 also asks counties to provide services to people with substance use disorders from similarly significantly reduced funding.

It is impossible to expand services while reducing funding. Proposition 1 provides no new funding for behavioral health services, which means there is nothing to fill the new gap created by Proposition 1. Instead, they are stealing volunteer services to subsidize a new empire of private behavioral health facilities. Proposition 1 would shift nearly $1 billion annually from services to “housing interventions” and “maintain essential treatment centers” built under companion bonds. But that doesn’t necessarily mean a new home.

Of the $6.4 billion in bonds, $4.4 billion is earmarked for infrastructure programs that include grants to build clinical treatment facilities operated by private companies. Including interest, bond costs can increase by 60% over its lifetime, which is worth considering as the state faces its worst budget deficit since the Great Recession.

California builds facilities needed by California to implement recent initiatives such as Senate Bill 43, which relaxes the state’s landmark guardianship law and extends standards for involuntary treatment to people Infrastructure investments have already begun and have not yet been made. With substance use disorder. Of course there is also a CARE coat. However, all but two counties chose to delay SB 43’s effectiveness for two years because they do not have locked facilities to staff them. Proposition 1 could build those facilities.