Panel OKs Major Reforms in Aid for State’s Mentally Ill

A bill that would make significant reforms in the mental health system--adding $58 million to the state budget and launching a new program to provide food, clothing and shelter to the homeless mentally ill--was unanimously approved Tuesday by a legislative committee.

“The level of mental health care in the state has atrophied,” the bill’s author, Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan (D-Fresno), told fellow members of the Assembly subcommittee on mental health and developmental disabilities. “Now most county mental health systems are skeletons of what they once were.”

Bronzan said it would take an even larger increase, $190 million, to get spending levels back to what they were in 1980.

His bill, he said, is only a first step in rebuilding a publicly financed mental health program that now is a chaotic “non-system.”

‘Back on State’s Agenda’

“What we’re trying to do with this bill, more than anything else, is to put mental health back on the state’s agenda,” Bronzan said.

Among its major features, the bill would set up special agencies in six counties to identify the homeless mentally ill and help them to qualify for Social Security benefits and other services.

The measure also would require development of programs to deal with the special needs of Vietnam veterans, emotionally disturbed children and elderly individuals living alone.

Virtually every witness who testified was in favor of the bill. An exception was a representative of the state Department of Mental Health, who said his agency has not yet taken a position.

Gov. George Deukmejian already has proposed a $100-million increase in next year’s budget for operating state hospitals and local mental health programs. Whether the governor will also agree to the $58-million package in Bronzan’s bill remains to be seen.

Many of the programs established by the measure would require spending not covered by the bill itself. For example, adding homeless individuals to the Social Security disability rolls would mean a substantial increase in state and federal costs.

If 20,000 homeless mentally ill were to be added to Social Security, the cost would exceed $120 million a year, according to a Bronzan aide.

A long list of groups interested in mental health has endorsed Bronzan’s measure, which already has the backing of Republican and Democratic leaders in the Assembly.

On Tuesday, the most emotional endorsement came from Dan Weisburd, a Los Angeles film producer, whose 24-year-old son began hearing voices four years ago while a student at Harvard.

Since then, his son has lived on the streets and has been in jail. He also has been in state hospitals and in other locked facilities, where he was overdosed with drugs that left him temporarily paralyzed and unable to control his bladder, according to Weisburd.

“We have gone through the public system in Los Angeles County and used it up,” Weisburd said. He complained that those “who are the most in need are the most difficult to deal with” and are turned away by “a system in gross disarray.”

THE MENTAL HEALTH BILL A legislative committee Tuesday approved a $58-million bill that wold launch new efforts to feed, clothe and house the homeless mentally ill. Specifically, the bill would:

Increase payments to private board-and care home operators who take in the most severely ill patients.

Establish local treatment programs for mentally ill patients who have been jailed for minor crimes

Double the number of treatments allowed under Medi-Cal, now limited to two a month.

Beginning in 1986, set aside at least 1% of the state’s mental health budget for research.

Launch a model program in Los Angeles County to moniter potentially dangerous mentally ill criminals after their release from prison to make sure they recieve adequate treatment in the community.