Expand Mental Health, Substance Abuse Services and Job Training

We can all see the impacts of untreated mental illness and prolonged substance abuse on our streets. Housing alone will not solve the crisis and we have a shortage of behavioral health treatment facilities for people with severe mental illness. In fact, Riverside County has only 77 public acute care psychiatric hospital beds for a county of 2.5 million.

We must ensure the supportive services that people need to reclaim their lives and rejoin society are in place.

As Supervisor, I will expand mental health and substance abuse services by deploying mobile behavioral health teams so that people on the streets demonstrating behavioral health issues can be admitted into facilities to get the treatment they need.

Instead of allowing people to languish on the streets I will also push for the development of a new psychiatric treatment facility and utilize new legal tools I helped create to compel severely mentally ill people into treatment.

I will further expand partnerships with nonprofits like the Salvation Army, which provide job training people need to get back on their feet.

Create More Housing That’s Affordable

The lack of quality affordable housing is one of the top reasons many find themselves homeless. Furthermore, many people experiencing homelessness in Riverside are employed but still cannot afford to live in our communities. That is why I plan to do everything I can to get more permanent housing built, including providing incentives to quickly build housing that seniors, young people, and working families can afford. I will also work to create a landlord liaison program to build relationships and provide support to landlords that agree to rent to people experiencing homelessness.

Preventing and Diverting People from Becoming Homeless

We must stop the flow of people onto our streets, or we will never get ahead of the curve. I will work to create a flexible pool of resources specifically to help seniors at risk of losing their homes, provide short-term rental assistance to individuals and families imminently at risk of becoming homeless.
Expand partnerships with non-profits like Miracle Message that reunify individuals with family members when possible.

Enforcing our Quality-of-Life Laws

While homelessness is not responsible for every crime in Riverside, the connection between the rise in homelessness and increases in petty crime, open drug use, and property damage cannot be denied. I will ensure our quality-of-life laws are enforced, so that parents can once again feel safe allowing their kids to play outside.