Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/mental-health-services-act/)
Plans call for mental health and drug addiction treatment programs to be available to all county residents, regardless of who their insurance provider is, which officials said would be the first facility in the nation to do so.
Last year, as county officials were hauled into federal court over a shortage of homeless shelters, Voice of OC reported the stockpiled mental health funds had reached $186 million beyond the reserves.
Orange County leaders this week unveiled a $40 million, 60,000 square foot mental health campus in Orange aimed at radically shifting regional homelessness spending away from local police and more toward mental health treatment.
The announcement came as county and city officials said the county is working on a proposal for adding shelters at three yet-to-be-named locations.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in state grants could become available next year, and some community leaders want to compete for it to help build 2,700 homes for homeless people.
Orange County supervisors to create up to 400 new emergency shelter beds on county-owned properties and spend about $70.5 million in stockpiled money for housing and services for homeless people with serious mental illnesses.
The top county officials are moving in a new direction to address the county’s growing homelessness, authorizing new housing and support services in a unanimous decision this week.