Veterans with mental health issues should get added help getting connected to services after County Supervisors accepted a State grant to pay for it.
County Veterans Services Officer, Morgan Boyd said the office had applied for a $243,000 grant from the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), to cover two fiscal years — 2026-27 and 2027-28.
She said CalVet had accepted the County’s application and actually awarded more money than the County had asked for, some $300,000.
The money is designated to support mental health outreach and support services, he said, for military veterans living in SLO County.
The MHSA Program was started in 2004, she explained, and boosted the funding, personnel and other resources in support of the County’s existing mental health resources. The grants include a monitoring program to gauge “progress toward statewide goals for serving Californians with mental health needs,” in general with the CalVet program targeting veterans.
The CalVet grant targets treatment and “other recovery programs,” Boyd said.
The money will pay for one “Veterans Services Representative who will mostly focus on outreach,” he said. The listed salary and benefits for that one employee is $128,000 per year or $257,000 for the duration of the grant. That will eat up all but $42,000 of the money ($21,000 per year), with that amount being used for “various public outreach and education activities.” There’s a pretty ambitious set of goals they hope to accomplish with what really isn’t a lot of money:
• Providing information for mental health services for transitioning service members, veterans, and their families to ease their return from service;
• Incorporating best practices identified within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (see: www.samhsa.gov);
• Collaborating with federal, state, and community-based service providers and institutions of higher education;
• Reducing stigmas and encouraging those with mental health needs to seek help by adopting educational mental health programs for veterans and their families;
• Promoting programs that encourage early intervention of mental health needs for veterans and their families:
• Promote services to “justice-involved” veterans, specifically criminal diversion, and veteran treatment court participation;
• Identify and provide referrals for underserved populations such as other than honorable discharged veterans, women veterans, and other underrepresented groups;
• Promote evidence-based mental health programs by referring their services to veterans and their families;
• Provide homeless veterans with referrals to supportive housing programs that include mental health treatment services;
• Reduce eligibility and enrollment barriers by providing timely and effective referrals to service providers;
• VSO will attempt to directly or indirectly partner with California Community Colleges to provide veterans and their family members behavioral healthcare on the school campus;
• VSO will partner with legal service providers who work with veterans;
• VSO will collaborate with service providers that assist with housing or assisted living support for senior veterans; and,
• VSO will collaborate with organizations that provide veterans assistance with aging services.
Boyd added that mental health issues among veterans could lead to them becoming homeless.
“The County’s 2022 homeless point-in-time count,” Boyd said, “showed the top health conditions for un-housed individuals were post-traumatic stress disorder (46%), a psychiatric or emotional condition (43%), drug or alcohol abuse (35%), and chronic health problems (31%).
“Homeless individuals and high-system users often face challenges in accessing consistent healthcare services due to a lack of stable housing, transportation, or insurance.”
