For too long, people with severe behavioral health issues have faced complicated challenges because they lacked stable housing.
Now a new Medi-Cal benefit known as Transitional Rent aims to change that cycle by giving people a chance to catch their breath, and take a moment to plan their next step.
Transitional Rent provides up to six months of rental assistance for Medi-Cal members going through difficult life changes, such as leaving a psychiatric facility, jail or foster care.
It’s designed for those with behavioral health needs who are homeless or at risk.
Under the program, managed care plans can pay rent directly to landlords or cover temporary stays in motels, recovery homes, or other safe places while a long-term housing solution is secured.
No member copay, no confusing maze of paperwork. Just a roof overhead and a plan for the next step.
To qualify, participants must have a diagnosed behavioral health condition and meet California’s definition of homelessness or risk of homelessness. Care teams will then create a housing support plan, which must link to a sustainable subsidy such as one funded by the Behavioral Health Services Act to ensure stability beyond the six-month window.
Funding comes from the state Department of Health Care Services to Medi-Cal plans, which are reimbursed for rent expenses within state limits, plus administration costs.
Transitional Rent may sound like bureaucratic tweaker speak, but it represents a philosophical shift: treating housing as health care.
The benefit can’t duplicate other housing support and, by design, acts as a bridge limited to six months in a 12-month period to move people into permanent supported housing.
Transitional Rent may sound like bureaucratic tweaker speak, but it represents a philosophical shift: treating housing as health care.
With California’s hospitals busting at the seams and jails moonlighting as mental health clinics, even short-term stability can mean the difference between relapse and recovery, between institutionalization and independence.
In the long run, this modest cost could save public dollars, most of all human lives, and that’s a return California can’t afford to ignore.
For counties like Santa Barbara, this is much more than a challenge, it’s time to make sure these new programs deliver on a promise of a better future with compassion and dignity.