(CN) — California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of legislation seeking to address homelessness in the state by expanding mental health services and behavioral health housing.
The Wednesday press conference and bill-signing took place at a board and care facility in Los Angeles and was attended by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis and multiple members of the state Assembly and Newsom’s cabinet.
The press conference came a day after Newsom signed a slate of 27 other bills addressing homelessness. A press release from the governor’s office called the latest suite of legislation “a critical part” of Newsom’s $22 billion effort to tackle housing affordability and homelessness by creating 84,000 housing units. According to the press release, $3 billion of the homelessness investment will go toward housing for individuals “with the most acute behavioral and physical health needs,” creating approximately 22,000 new beds and treatment slots.
State Health and Human Services chief Mark Ghaly said during the conference the money would be dedicated to “funding projects along the entire continuum of behavioral health, everything from inpatient units to lower levels of care that are in communities like this [with] the infrastructure dollars on one hand and the service dollars through our Medicaid program on the other.”
Newsom said merging the state’s focuses on housing and health marked a “dramatic shift from the status quo” that would help “break down these silos and integrate our strategies in a much more comprehensive, dynamic way.”
Beyond the money set aside for acute care facilities and other mental and behavioral health resources, Newsom and lawmakers touted a bill requiring the state to take on greater accountability over homelessness issues through an interagency council helmed by Ghaly and Lourdes Castro Ramirez, secretary of the state’s Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency.
Among the interagency council’s tasks will be to incentivize local jurisdictions to implement state-approved plans to address homelessness.
“If the plans are approved and the six specific metrics that we lay out as minimum expectations are achieved, the state has actually set aside money to provide 18% bonuses to those governmental jurisdictions that actually produce real results,” Newsom said.
Other bills Newsom signed Wednesday seek to improve data and reporting, particularly for children experiencing homelessness throughout the state.
“In California, there are enough homeless children to fill Dodger Stadium five times,” said Assembly member Luz Rivas during the press conference. She said the two bills she wrote that were signed Wednesday include procedures to help K-12 schools “identify children that are homeless and also refer them to the services that they and their families need.”
Dodger Stadium seats 56,000 people. A report from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that more than 269,000 K-12 students in California are experiencing homelessness.
The officials recognized the vocal concerns and frustrations from Californians about the scope of homelessness across the state and tried to assuage skepticism about politicians promising solutions even as the population of unhoused people grows.
“We need to do more and we need to be better,” Newsom said. “We have a unique responsibility because nothing like the homelessness crisis exists anywhere else in the United States like it exists and persists here in the state of California.”
The officials said that although the thorny issues of housing affordability, homelessness and access to mental and behavioral health services may not be resolved overnight, the investments approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor would have a potent impact in the future.
“I don’t want to over-promise how quickly we will see the progress,” Newsom said. “But I don’t want to under-promise how significant the efforts that we are now engaged in are compared to any other time in California history.”
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