San Diego Mental Health Chief Accepts Top Post in L.A. County

San Diego County’s mental health director Wednesday accepted an appointment to head Los Angeles County’s beleaguered mental health system.

Areta Crowell, who worked for nearly two decades in the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department before becoming San Diego’s mental health director in 1988, will take the $120,000-a-year post in late January, Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which voted last month to offer Crowell the job after a nationwide search, is scheduled to make the appointment official Tuesday.

Crowell, 55, who holds a doctorate in psychology, comes to a department that in recent years has drastically cut services to the mentally ill, including closing nine clinics, because of funding shortages.

Crowell, whose last position with the Los Angeles County mental health agency was a deputy director, could not be reached for comment. But an aide said Crowell is looking forward to ending the drive that she and her husband, a USC professor, now make to spend weekends together. Her husband has remained in Los Angeles while Crowell has worked in San Diego, the aide said.

Crowell’s appointment was greeted with enthusiasm by Los Angeles mental health officials, who say she is known for building coalitions.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Ann Brand, executive director of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center and president of the Assn. of Community Mental Health Agencies. “She has an ability to work with the many groups representing stakeholders in the mental health system.”

San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray said, “I have nothing but praise for the miracles she was able to do” with an underfunded mental health system. She earned $90,000 a year as San Diego’s mental health director.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman said Crowell’s appointment “will give our Mental Health Department some new direction. . . . She is good at working with people.”

Crowell will replace acting director Francis Dowling, who took over in June when Roberto Quiroz resigned after seven years as director.