Many mental health programs in the North State could lose funding after California voters approved Proposition 1.
Some say the statewide ballot measure that requires counties to reallocate some of their state mental health funding to housing could be a detriment to existing services.
Counties will need to put 30% of funding from the Behavioral Health Services Act — formerly the Mental Health Services Act — into housing for those with severe mental illness.
Several services in Butte County may be at risk of closure, including the African American Family and Cultural Center in Oroville, the Iversen Center and the 6th Street Center for Youth.
Scott Kennelly, director of Butte County Behavioral Health, said the measure may have seemed like a promise to get people off the streets and into treatment.
“Many people really looked at that as a silver bullet for homelessness and voted yes, and didn't necessarily look at all the pros and cons behind the proposition,” Kennelly said.
There is a $6.4 billion bond that’s part of Prop. 1 to help fund treatment beds. But Kennelly said it’s a competitive grant. And he said right now the details are unclear about how much of that funding will go to Butte County.
“If contractors just say, ‘I'm gonna wait and see if the funding remains,’ and then if it gets cut, that's our concern, is that they will be caught flat-footed and in two years might not exist.”— Scott Kennelly, Butte County Behavioral Health Director
“I would think the state's going to make it accessible to all counties,” Kennelly said. “Usually the larger counties get more of the grants than the rural counties and you hope that there's a more equitable way to distribute that money, if they do really want treatment and housing in the North State as well.”
Additionally, Kennelly said the bond covers the construction of housing but it doesn’t cover other costs to run the facilities, which he said can be extremely expensive.
“Let's say I got $30 million to build a psychiatric inpatient facility to house all these newly eligible people,” Kennelly said.
“I still have to pay for the treatment providers to operate it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And there's no funding for any of those services.”
Kennelly said he’s encouraging program leaders whose funding might be affected to explore other options.
“Some of our contractors could pivot and shift and survive,” Kennelly said. But he’s worried about others.
“If contractors just say, ‘I'm gonna wait and see if the funding remains,’ and then if it gets cut, that's our concern, is that they will be caught flat-footed and in two years might not exist.”
The next two years will be an adjustment period, Kennelly said. He doesn’t expect major changes for existing programs before then.
