My latest SoapBox Talk. 10.15.23:

SB 326 AKA PROP 1

(the Soon To Be Formerly Known as Mental Health Services Act).

What is it? What will it do? And Why I am Against It.

SB 326. I have to talk about it. This is me, stepping up on my soapbox once again.

(Note: The bill signed by Gov. Newsom just this past week. WILL appear on the ballot in March.)

I know. I know. I know. 

My posts are the lengths of novels. No. Make that novels whose word-count would make even J.R.R. Tolkien toss the book out the window. But this post, in particular…I urge you to read and read to the very end. And you should know. This is not coming from a professional standpoint–I mean, how could it? I’m not a licensed anything. 

But I am someone who lives with a severe, persistent mental illness. 

You might not think it. You might not equate my appearance and my level of functionality with that terminology. But I promise you. That is what I struggle with, have so for twenty-two years–causing pain, mind-splitting distress, and at times, havoc, not just in my life but in the lives of the ones I love, and so, I think I have earned an ounce of credibility in what I am about to say.

Let’s start with this:

I don't know WHAT to think about Governor Gavin Newsom. In all honesty, I probably don't know much about him to have a clear-cut opinion of him at all.

For a while, I was so entirely grateful for him bringing traction to the mental health crisis in CA (a global crisis really). He signed a law earlier this year that would offer mental health classes as an elective in high schools that students can enroll in. (Not as effective as actually mandating mental health education to be integrated into the school curriculum like the states of New York and Virginia did in 2017, but a baby step, nonetheless. At least, it was SOMETHING.)

He's big on a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body. He made promises about bringing a Black woman to a seat in the Senate, and just two weeks ago, with Senator Feinstein's passing, he did exactly that.

And let's face it. California is an exceedingly liberal state. So liberal, exorbitant housing prices and wages failing to keep up, aren't the only reasons some native Californians have chosen to leave.

So how eager are we– a multi-ethnic state of laid-back, left-leaning, flipflops-in-the-middle-of-winter-wearing, fighting-for-the-rights-of-even-a-grain-of-sand-that-somehow-has-made-its-way-into-a-shop-on-Rodeo Drive– NOT going to jump at the chance to vote YES on Senate Bill 326 recently signed by Gov. Newsom and due to appear on the ballot come March?

All I have to say is…do your due diligence before casting this vote.

As I said at the start, I'm not speaking to you in any professional capacity. I am not a licensed anything. I am speaking to you as someone with a severe mental illness. Bipolar 1 Disorder. Someone who heard voices and experienced paranoid delusions at 16, who was 5150’d at age 17, and released days before I turned 18.

Reeling the focus back in, I want to talk about Senate Bill 326 that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed just this past week. It was passed on October 12, 2023. The bill, along with other related bills, WILL appear on the ballot come March.

If you wish to read the 100-plus pages bill, feel free to do so here: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB326/id/2834153. Full transparency, I did not scroll to the very bottom, but I did read a good chunk.

In 2004, California voters passed the Mental Health Services Act or MHSA (on the ballot as Prop 63), “designed to expand and transform “California's behavioral health system to better serve individuals with, and at risk of, serious mental health issues, and their families. MHSA addresses a broad continuum of PREVENTION, EARLY INTERVENTION, and service needs and the necessary infrastructure, technology, and training elements that effectively support the public behavioral health system” (DHCS.ca.gov).

It provided new funding for PUBLIC mental health services, imposing a 1% taxation on personal income exceeding $1 million.

SB 326 will rename the Mental Health Services Act as “The Behavioral Health Services Act”.

  1. No longer will CA legislators need voters to approve any further amendments to what will be formerly known as MHSA. The official, recorded Legislative Counsel’s Digest which prefaces and summarizes in brief the proposed bill actually states, “this bill would delete the provision that establishes vote requirements to MHSA.” 

    1. Which also means we, as the voters, will not get a say on how the CA government decides how to spend their funds on mental health services.

  2. The STATE Dept of Health Care Services will have FULL authorization to develop and REVISE “documentation standards for individual service plans, as specified. The bill will REVISE the contracting process…authorizing the [STATE] department to temporarily withhold funds or impose money sanctions on COUNTY behavioral health department that is not in compliance with the contract.”

    1. currently, “provisions governing the operation and financing of COMMUNITY mental health services for persons with mental health disorders…through locally administered…controlled community health programs. [...] mental health services are provided through contracts with county mental health programs

      1. my issue: the State wants to come in and decide what is best for these unique, diverse communities throughout the VAST state of California, where to put the funds, what programs to invest, which programs to delete entirely…

        1. an issue why? the Peers of the mental health community in CA had very little say in the revision of this bill

        2. a substantial amount of Peers of the mental health community do NOT SUPPORT THIS BILL (like Disability Rights California or DRA, whose last two press releases - Press Release, Aug 12, 2023- I just posted on Facebook), and mind you, a mental health disorder is deemed under law a “disability)

        3. What do I mean by peers? People living with mental health conditions themselves and those who advocate for them–families, friends, doctors, social workers, etc.

What else will the Bill do?

“It will make significant cuts to MHSA funds that are meant to be used for voluntary, community-based services, and would eliminate much-needed current mental health services.” (DRA, Press Release, Aug 12, 2023) It will also ramp up efforts for involuntary hospitalization. (I touch upon this a bit more later.)

Shift immediate focus to people with persistent, severe mental illnesses, diverting hundreds of millions of dollars away from other community-run programs, programs targeting early intervention and prevention (intervening before the problem gets to the point of homelessness, poverty, and hopelessness).

It will “impact:

…Outpatient services, crisis response, outreach and early intervention and prevention programs that help individuals from developing mental illness and/or substance use disorders that may later contribute to them becoming unhoused” (DRA, Press Release, Aug 12, 2023)

We are all aware of the homelessness crisis in the state of California. We witness it everyday, some to a greater extent than others. When I worked as a temp at a nonprofit in DTLA that offered services engaging homeless people in steps to getting housing and eventually a job, I walked Skid Row, and the 8-year-old Crystal once again conjured up her dream of housing every homeless person in the world. When I worked in Downtown Long Beach for a year at an apartment community, I was very naively shocked at how bad the homeless situation is there. I didn’t realize pockets of Long Beach are just as bad as Skid Row in LA. And we all know the souls that flock to the city center of Santa Ana.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for those without homes. It crushes my soul to see anyone on the streets, and I help with what I can. Food, a spare bit of change. If I was a billionaire, I’d build an entire city to house them.

I know a million circumstances serve as reasons why millions end up on the streets, and that mental health challenges are at the base of many of those circumstances–maybe trauma-induced, maybe a man lost his job, and then, his house, and then, his bearings, and ultimately, his mind.

This is not my attempt to halt funding to help alleviate the homeless crisis in CA. I am sick and tired of seeing people revolted by the presence of a homeless person talking to himself in a store (happened two weeks ago when I was at a TJ Maxx in Brea). I am sick of seeing the fear and complete lack of understanding or any measure of compassion in people’s faces when a homeless person crosses their path.

Don’t they know? Don’t they know that people like that could very well have started out like people like me? That man in TJ Maxx, roaming the aisles frantically, yelling to himself, dressed in rags, looking like he hadn’t eaten in days, showered in months, that could have been me. It was evident that he was struggling with some kind of mental health condition, and my heart crumbled. I wished I could have helped him, but they kicked him out of the store before I knew it. 

The problem with SB 326 is not that it wants to help people who are unhoused and suffering from mental illnesses. It’s that it will simultaneously CUT funding that will help the individuals who are headed in that direction.

Do you see what I am getting at? 

Governor Newsom, this is not a cure for homelessness. I know you’re trying to win over our favor because this issue has been a headache for so many Californians, but you are going about it the wrong way. You are cutting the funding for voluntary, community-based services that are accessible to the public. You are trying to decide for US, the people, the PEERS what is essential for our recovery, for our ability to live not just decent, but fruitful lives.

You want to solve this issue from the top-down, but you have no idea what it is like living at the bottom. 

Funding for mental health services for people with severe, persistent mental illness, YES. But all other programs will go underfunded. What about Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color who will be also affected by this bill?

And what about our kids?

“That worries Tiffany McCarter, executive director of the African-American Family & Cultural Center in Oroville, which provides children with food, after-school care, and other services, such as anger management…” (bakersfield.com/news)

“That’s because her organization depends almost entirely on money from the Mental Health Services Act. She’s trying to rush to apply for grants but worries that she doesn’t have enough time. She says other organizations that serve people of color in her community —and around the state — are in the same position.”

‘It’s a lose, lose, lose all the way around,’ she said.

This bill is not a product of collaboration.

The State will decide where the funds go once this bill is signed into law.

The State will decide what should be prioritized.

Ths State will not ask the voters once this bill passes. It will not require a VOTE from us when amendments to this Bill are made.

This bill supports involuntary hospitalization, and while yes, being 5150’d is what enabled the doctors to secure a diagnosis for me, I will forever be traumatized by those 40 plus days I spent in a mental institution, just like so many others. I’m not saying it’s an malintented idea, if someone is going to hurt themselves, it can save their life. But involuntary hospitalization has its flaws.

I am a peer. I am someone with a severe mental illness who had an early intervention at the age of 16, and through the power of advocacy, education, a fierce support system of family and mental health professionals (suggested by the community, not by the state), have reached the stable point I am at today. I am one of the very blessed, very lucky ones. I know that. Not everyone has had my journey and vice versa. 

But it is because of my journey that I fiercely believe we can still FIGHT for people with severe mental illnesses without draining the funds of all these other programs.

I get what they’re trying to do. I want homelessness to end. I want homeless people to stop hurting, no one wants to feel lost, confused, abandoned or just forgotten. I want to save them. But there has to be a way to help them without helping nudge those already headed in the same direction.

(Note: Some people say “homeless” is not politically correct and insensitive, and if I’ve offended you, I truly apologize. I think the correct term is “person without homes” or “unhoused”.)

If you’ve made it to the end of the post, (I am sorry for being so verbose once again), 1), I thank you for hearing what I had to say, and 2) I am not telling you to vote one way or another.

I just urge you to tread carefully and really consider what SB 326 will mean not just for mentally ill homeless people, or people with severe mental illness, but for people who all struggle with mental health.