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San Diego –
The county’s efforts to overhaul its behavioral health systems include $ 218.6 million in state mental health funding that covered services to 71,000 people this fiscal year, county officials reported Tuesday.
The report counted expenses under the Mental Health Services Act of 2004, a California law that the California Department of Health says is paid for by a 1 percent tax on personal income of over $ 1 million a year.
Funding was an integral part of the county’s efforts to build a system of mental health care and substance abuse treatment that is “focused on prevention and on-going care, not perpetual crises,” the board said the letter.
It aims to reduce what officials refer to as the revolving door of emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals, where the mentally ill or addicts are repeatedly treated, stabilized, and discharged for mental crises. Without consistent follow-up care, many lose contact with providers of mental illnesses and experience subsequent mental emergencies.
The difficulty of finding or keeping a job or apartment creates further instability for many patients, authorities say.
San Diego County’s Behavioral Health Director Luke Bergmann said this year’s funding will include $ 53 million to help finance homes with special needs; $ 28.8 million for Project One for All, which connects patients with shelter, mental health, and substance abuse treatment and case management; and $ 115 million for No Place Like Home, which provides permanent housing for adults and children with mental illness.
Spending highlights include $ 14.7 million for “full-service partnerships,” which include a range of services for 15,000 children and adults, including $ 6.5 million for school-based services, Bergmann said.
An additional $ 12.8 million is earmarked for crisis stabilization units, which provide an alternative to the emergency room and have facilities designed to calm people in psychiatric crisis. Those programs include two new units opening in North County this year, he said.
The need for these services has grown due to the pandemic as San Diegans reports increased rates of anxiety, depression and substance abuse.
“It was much worse during the pandemic than at other times,” Bergmann said in a separate presentation during the Board of Directors’ COVID-19 update this week.
Suicide threats and attempts have increased, he said, and are rising in direct proportion to increases in the pandemic.
“The most shocking statistic are people dying from accidental drug overdoses,” he said, citing a “massive and tragic increase” in deaths from the strong opiod fentanyl, which is sometimes added to other street drugs.
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