Link – With an epidemic of mental illness on the streets, counties struggle to spend huge cash reserves

I only have an eye roll for this:

When California voters passed a tax on high-income residents in 2004, backers said it would make good on the state’s “failed promise” to help counties pay for the treatment of the mentally ill.

After nearly 15 years, Proposition 63 — the Mental Health Services Act — has steered billions of dollars to the counties across the state. But huge sums remain unspent at a time when mental illness has become an epidemic among the homeless population.

If it’s not one thing it’s another. For all the attention we try to draw to the lack of money, the lack of resources, the lack of treatment options, here we have a state that actually set aside money for mental health treatment, but the county can’t figure out how to spend it? Gladly, it seems like there’s finally some momentum to get some projects and programs going, but it just goes to show. As much as it’s about having the money available, you gotta have a plan to create programs that actually treat people too.

Here’s hoping these programs do exactly that.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-mhsa-unspent-balance-20180819-story.html