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October 11, 2022

Nathan Fletcher

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors today approved a policy introduced by Chair Nathan Fletcher, to establish a new Behavioral Health Impact Fund that will expeditiously award grants for services and infrastructure to expand behavioral health options in the region. Today’s action set-up the fund, but no money was allotted to it.

“We funded some great projects with the original version of the Impact Fund we established through a partnership with the City of San Diego.” said Chair Fletcher. “Those funds are nearly depleted, and we want to replicate that model, but this time have it be solely managed by the County of San Diego. This will give us more flexibility to fund a wider variety of projects all over the County.”

The original Behavioral Health Impact Fund was conceptualized by Chair Fletcher in 2019 to provide one-time capital funding for mental health and drug treatment providers to expand their capacity to provide services to individuals. Chair Fletcher approached the City of San Diego about the idea to use settlement money from a legal dispute involving redevelopment money to fund the capital projects. All projects supported with the $25 million were to be concentrated in the City of San Diego.

The first money distributed from the joint County-City fund was in May of 2021. The list of projects that have been supported with the original are:

McAlister Institute for Treatment and Education:

Open 58 co-located residential substance use disorder beds.

La Maestra Community Health Center:

Build 21 units of transitional housing dedicated to individuals with behavioral health conditions.

Community Research Foundation:

Purchase three vehicles to directly transport individuals staying at three Crisis Residential Treatment locations.

Stepping Stone of San Diego:

Purchase a custom sail share to create additional outdoor space for individual and group treatment services.

Sharp Healthcare Foundation:

Purchase 65 licenses to implement behavioral health services via telehealth.

Jewish Family Services:

Purchase technology to implement two new daytime Wi-Fi points of access for homeless outreach workers to provide telehealth services as part of their Drive Safe Parking Program.

Urban Street Angels:

Construction and improvements for facility serving transitional aged youth experiencing homelessness.

About $7.5 million remains from the original impact fund, and will be spent down in partnership with the City of San Diego.  

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