More than 10 years after Californians voted for a special income tax on millionaires to pay for expanded mental health services, we still don’t know if the program is working the way its sponsors promised it would.
A massive tax program former state Sen. Darrell Steinberg pushed to fund mental health services is providing relief to tens of thousands of Californians and decreasing homelessness, hospitalizations and arrests among mentally ill people treated in the programs, according to a report Steinberg released Wednesday.
The Steinberg Institute for Advancing Behavioral Health Policy & Leadership today released the first comprehensive, data-driven study of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), created by Proposition 63. The evaluation, performed in partnership with the California Behavioral Health Directors Association of California (CBHDA), draws from data reported by counties to state agencies.
