It’s been almost a year since Roger Thompson stood before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, imploring officials not to allow cuts to mental health programs. Despite his plea, $4 million in reductions went forward anyway. But Thompson mobilized, and by organizing a group of fellow mental health patients who were seeing funding slip away for vital services, the Consumer Advocacy Coalition was formed.
Now the group may be facing its biggest challenge: Proposition 1E on the May 19 special election ballot. A small but defiant gathering of mental health consumers and advocates met at the Courthouse Sunken Garden on Thursday to demonstrate against the proposition, which will appear among five other ballot initiatives aimed at shoring up California’s perpetual budget shortfall. If passed, nearly $500 million would be shifted to the state’s general fund from mental health programs for children, all part of an effort to close California’s $42 billion deficit.
Thompson, opened Thursday’s event with an apology for his best friend and fellow CAC member, Leah Juniper, who was in the hospital and could not be present. Thompson, who has bipolar disorder, said he’d been in and out of the hospital last week as well.
“Such is our reality, but we don’t give up,” he said. “We’re proof that recovery is possible, that the dream of turning life around and living in society is very real. But if Prop. 1E passes, that dream crumbles.”
Proposition 1E deals with funding set by a 2004 initiative, Proposition 63, which implemented an additional 1 percent tax on households with incomes of $1 million or above. The so-called millionaire’s tax was approved by voters, and that money currently goes to create new and expanded mental health programs for children and adults.
“I want you to take a minute and look behind you,” said 1st District Supervisor Salud Carbajal, gesturing to the empty lawn behind the small crowd. The demonstration wasn’t bigger, he said, because children and families affected by mental illness could not show up, but were some of the most vulnerable people that would be affected.
Carbajal went so far as to call the May 19 propositions “misguided, inappropriate shams that have deceptive titles.”
“The state ought to be ashamed,” he said.
In addition to Carbajal, several others took issue with the wording of the propositions. For example, Prop. 1E’s description from the secretary of state’s Web site says that the prop would transfer funds “from mental health programs under that act to pay for mental health services for children and young adults provided through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment Program.” The description also says $225 million in flexible funding for mental health would be provided, while balancing the state budget.
Proposition 1D, which the group also met to oppose, is just as convoluted. If passed, it would shift about $268 million of annual tobacco revenue that currently funds First Five early childhood development programs into a reserve fund. That fund would be used to pay for other childhood services, and an additional $340 million would come out of First Five reserve funds. That money would be used to pay for programs that are normally funded by the general fund, like foster care, child care, Medi-Cal and state preschool. The secretary of state’s Web site says it will “provide more than $600 million to protect children’s programs in difficult economic times.”
Among those who criticized the language of the bills was Barry Schoer, executive director of Sanctuary Psychiatric Center.
“It made it sound like Props. 1E and 1D were great things, and if you didn’t do them, it would be terrible for the state,” he said.
City Council members Iya Falcone, Roger Horton, Grant House, Helene Schneider and Das Williams were on hand, and both House and Schneider talked about the possible impacts on the city if the measures passed.
“I get it that the state is in dire economic straits,” Schneider said. “What I don’t get is how we think we can balance a massive budget on the backs of our children and the backs of the mentally ill.”
David Selberg, executive director of Pacific Pride, said Prop. 1E would affect the LGBT community, noting that those youth are four times as likely to attempt suicide. Families ACT! executive director Suzanne Riordan also spoke.
Thompson recollected standing before the supervisors last year. In addition to forming CAC since then, he was also selected to be on the Mental Health Commission. In spite of the even greater challenge of a ballot initiative, he was optimistic.
“We did not give up then,” he said. “We will not give up now.”
Click here for more information on the Consumer Advocacy Coalition.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com.
