On the eve of Memorial Day weekend, Gov. Gavin Newsom and first associate Jennifer Siebel Newsom visited the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, touring a brand new supportive housing website there.
The go to on Friday afternoon, Might 26, was meant to tout what the governor’s press workplace described in a information launch as “historic investments made in behavioral well being and housing sources for veterans.”
California is dwelling to 1.6 million veterans, probably the most within the nation, in response to Newsom’s workplace. There have been almost 4,000 veterans who had been tallied in LA County in 2022, in response to that 12 months’s point-in-time depend by the Los Angeles Homeless Providers Authority.
Current state investments have led to CalVet increasing packages targeted on veterans, notably complete behavioral and psychological well being providers, resembling these supplied on the West Los Angeles VA campus.
“Our veterans put their lives on the road to serve our nation, now we have to serve them in return,” the governor stated in a Friday assertion. “Too many veterans can’t escape the battlefront, even right here on the house entrance – and due to that, now we have misplaced too many of those heroes to suicide, whereas many extra wrestle with different behavioral and bodily well being considerations.”
These investiments, in response to the discharge, embody:
- The California Veterans Well being Initiative, which offered $50 million to enhance coordination amongst numerous companies sources to spice up schooling and outreach efforts, whereas growing capability.
- Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program, which offered $100 million to assist housing initiatives adjust to a requirement to offer on-site providers.
- Veterans Assist to Self-Reliance Pilot Program, which gave a $25 million increase to offer providers meant to assist veterans keep of their houses as they age.
- Behavioral Well being Providers Program, which offered $1.27 million in ongoing funding to assist counties enhance psychological well being providers for veterans.
- California Transition Help Program , which offers coaching, each in-person and just about, to lively service members, veterans and their households.
- The hiring of scientific social staff, psychologists and psychiatrists on the eight Veterans Properties of California to make sure satisfactory behavioral well being providers all through the state.
“California is constructing an accessible community of sources for veterans and their households, whereas we sort out the lethal stigma round psychological well being that isolates and endangers so a lot of our heroes,” Newsom stated. “We’re dwelling to the nation’s largest inhabitants of veterans, who all need to be related, revered, and guarded.”
