AB 2951: Mobile mental health crisis response teams.

Existing law, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, provides for the involuntary commitment and treatment of persons with specified mental disorders. Under the act, when a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others or to themselves, or gravely disabled, the person may, upon probable cause, be taken into custody and placed in a facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Health Care Services for up to 72 hours for evaluation and treatment. Existing law authorizes specified individuals to take, or cause to be taken, a person into custody pursuant to these provisions, including, among others, designated members of mobile crisis teams.

Existing law also establishes, until January 1, 2026, the Medication-Assisted Treatment Grant Program, to be administered by the Board of State and Community Corrections. Existing law requires the board to award grants, on a competitive basis, to counties and authorizes counties that receive grants to use grant funds for various purposes relating to the treatment of substance use disorders and the provision of medication-assisted treatment, including for the purpose of funding mobile crisis teams of behavioral health professionals that can respond with law enforcement to mental health or other health crisis calls.

This bill would require the State Department of Health Care Services to establish a 5-year statewide pilot program to provide grants to cities to create mobile mental health crisis response teams. The bill would require a city that receives a grant to ensure that, among other things, a mobile mental health crisis response team is a dispatch option when city employees respond to mental health emergency calls within the city. The bill would require a mobile mental health crisis response team funded with a grant to be staffed by licensed clinicians who have the legal authority to take, or cause to be taken, a person into custody pursuant to the above-described provisions. The bill would require a city that receives a grant to annually submit a report with specified information to the department. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2029. The bill would further state the intent of the Legislature that the bill will ultimately include an appropriation of $50,000,000 for the purposes of the pilot program.