CAL Matters: Breakdown: California’s mental health system, explained
Mental health advocates have long described California’s fragmented mental health system with words like “struggling” and “broken.”
Evidence of its consequences can be found in our jails and prisons, our hospitals and clinics, our schools and colleges. The problem touches those living in comfortable middle class suburbs, remote rural towns, and on the streets of the state’s biggest cities.
In January 2018, a year before he was elected governor, Gavin Newsom laid out his concerns: “Our system of mental health care in California falls short, not for lack of funding.