California's Prop 1 on the ballot
Merging the support of the unhoused and mentally unstable
I used to have a dark fear that my son would be living on the streets someday. While my son is in recovery from his 2 years of psychosis over 5 years ago I’ll never forget the possibility of that thought.
About 6 years ago I was commuting daily to San Francisco to attend a week long Enneagram Coaching Certification class that was substantial in cost with strict cancellation rules. (The Enneagram is an ancient personality system that helps a person understand themselves at a core level finding one’s truest authenticity and essence.) My son was at home from one of his hospital stays on a new medication, was somewhat stable and was being looked after by his Dad. A combination of selfishness, fear, anger, denial, and shame pushed me to attend the class with a desire of normalcy and self progression.
If I was to cancel and try to get my money back I would have to admit the crisis that became my daily life for almost 2 years wasn’t over.
If I was to cancel I would have to work at my regular full time job which was deadening.
If I was to cancel I feared I would never have this experience of self development again.
If I was to cancel I would be faced with seeing the continuation of my son deeply suffering.
Taking the advice of the parent support group, I was putting my oxygen mask on first. I needed a break with some normalcy as an individual seeking knowledge.
I thought I could compartmentalize and pretend that I was feeling normal in the group of 12 individuals working towards their personal development. I knew symbolically on some level that understanding myself more deeply would also provide a way to help my son in the long run. Energetically, my son was with me almost every moment in that class. I worked hard to compartmentalize it and hide it but when we were on break outside and conversations continued, I watched an unhoused person stumbling along talking to himself.
And that’s how my darkest imaginary fear was born and is one of the many drivers to ensure the continuation of my son’s recovery.
It is clearly apparent that correlation of mental illness and the unhoused can go hand in hand. Many who live on the streets suffer from anosognosia is a neurological condition in which the patient is unaware of their neurological deficit or psychiatric condition. It is associated with mental illness, dementia, and structural brain lesion, as is seen in right hemisphere stroke patients.
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Let’s take a closer look at Prop 1 now on the California ballot.
As the only state-wide California ballot its efforts are to increase mental health or substance abuse services with services for homeless individuals.
It shifts an already $140M budget in counties to the state budget to manage these services.
According to the San Jose Mercury News -
Since 2005, California has collected a tax from people with incomes over $1 million and used that money — between $2 billion and $3.5 billion every year — on mental health services. Under this, called the Mental Health Services Act, 95% of that money goes directly to counties to spend on certain types of services.
If Prop 1 is successful in the primary election, the state would get more of that funding (about 5% more) and would have to spend some on increasing the amount of mental health care workers in the state as well as drug and alcohol prevention measures, according to the LAO. Counties would be required to spend more on housing and personalized support services.
An estimated 4,350 housing units (with half earmarked for veterans) and 6,800 spaces for people to receive mental health services would be created if the measure is approved — as well as about 26,700 outpatient treatment slots, according to the California Budget & Policy Center.
The Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) is a crucial part of this budget and has been successfully supporting those for housing (30%), wraparound services and ensures children get preventative support before they suffer from worse consequences of untreated mental illness. It has been managed per county based on their needs. The MHSA has been also serving under
This Proposition proposes to modernize the MSHA and rename it the Behavioral Health Services Act as well as it proposes to raise an additional $6.2 billion in one-time bond funding to build more housing and treatment beds for those with the most severe needs.
Reading between the lines:
However, making this a state-owned program it takes away from the county’s ability to assess their specific needs thus taking away from their already thinly spread programs that are actually doing good. It has the potential to force medicated treatment for those unhoused which is a whole other issue. Drugs are not a one-size-fits all and knowing that many people are misdiagnosed to begin with adding these drugs can leave them worse off. Drugs are not a bandaid to the bigger picture. Plus I see this housing as a temporary solution and it could be a revolving door or worse. Or at best, this housing could become more supported communities run by the participants and hopefully not institutions.
And then I see this part of the proposal and I can breathe a bit of relief because today’s youth are in deep trouble. As someone who has witnessed her own child having a life-altering break at an early age, county resources from the Felton Institute helped us tremendously.
The law would also require the prevention and early intervention resources required by the original MHSA to be spent on proven strategies like investing in early psychosis identification so teenagers do not suffer that life-altering first break.
Affordable housing is also at the crux of this issue. I don’t understand why the housing crisis has to take away from MHSA programs that are working. Attaching housing into forced treatment is coercive. MHSA helps those who do not have insurance, who may be on Covered California and who qualify for these services. The most vulnerable populations are often who need these services.
I don’t believe in forced treatment which is what I fear this money reallocation will lead to. I believe in treatment but not in drugging and putting in homes much like the former mental institutions which were closed by former President Reagan in the 80s. I am on my 5th story for Mad in America where misdiagnosis and forced drug treatment has proven severely detrimental, see link below. While closing the institutions was the right thing it severely and abruptly fell short on the promised community programs which never happened. Side note: It sometimes helps the rage of fire that burns to blame this former President for our homeless and mental health crisis. The rise in costs of health care often does not cover the mental health services needed never mind the lack of thorough adequate care. Mental health care is not simply throwing meds and housing at people, there has to be qualified health caregivers that are well equipped and trained with whole body and mind therapies.
I know that one of the reasons why my son is in recovery is because we fight with insurance companies, have immense devotion to him and our family and have been blessed with many angels along our way to help. It is totally possible that he is on his way to living an independent happy life with his peers.
Staying in alignment with human dignity values shouldn’t be so difficult and there needs to be room for all socioeconomic levels to be healthy in body and mind.
I don’t know what the answer is for this Prop 1 on the California ballot. I know Gov. Newsom is under tremendous pressure to get people off the streets and I would like that for people too. At the same time I don’t think taking away from each individual county’s MHSA budget is the place to pull from. Perhaps it is a step in the right direction with the hopes of more to follow.
What do you think?
References:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22832-anosognosia
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/11/mental-health-services-act-update/
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/01/30/what-is-prop-1-californias-mental-health-and-homelessness-ballot-measure/
https://felton.org/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/california-lawmakers-want-to-invest-billions-in-housing-by-diverting-mental-health-funds/
https://www.madinamerica.com/author/skarpaty/