Gov. Newsom urges California voters to support Proposition 1

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 said.

“Think about somebody who’s in a crisis, who may be in the middle of a busy intersection anywhere in our county, who needs help, but hasn’t committed a crime. What alternatives are currently there?” Luna said, adding, “It shouldn’t be this way. We need better alternatives.”

Luna added that the proposition “will help allocate funding (for) the mental health facilities, so our neighbors who are friends with mental illness can get the treatment that they need.”

Bass said to anyone who hesitates to vote on Proposition 1, “Just think about how much money it costs to incarcerate people and think about how inhumane that is.”

She added, “When I think of what the sheriff and all the law enforcement have to deal with, somebody who is in an acute mental crisis deteriorating to the point of violence. If we care for that person they wouldn’t deteriorate to the point of violence.”

Bass told the crowd at the press event, “If you have to spend a couple of weeks in a tent, would you use drugs? When your mental health deteriorates? We can’t separate these problems, and it is not enough to get a bed for a person. We can get people off the street. We demonstrated that people are willing to come off the street. But you have to address why they were not housed, to begin with.”

Dave Gillotte, president of the Los Angeles County Fire Fighters Local 1014 union, said that every day he gets up to ten calls — out of 20 — that are related to the homeless crisis, drug addiction and mental health issues.

“We need drug addiction and alcohol (treatment facilities), mental health and treatment facilities, temporary and transitional housing, and permanent housing for people who need them,” he said.

Gillotte said that recently he got a call from a mother who lived with several children in a motorhome parked in an industrial section of town where her children managed to complete their homework assignments.

“These people are struggling to get into some sort of housing,” he said, adding that the proposition would create housing for unhoused families. “So it’s not just drug addicts who are in the midst of it.”

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