Newsom Celebrates Proposition 1 Victory After 'Sleepless Weeks'

Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the passage of Proposition 1 on Thursday after his ambitious proposal to reshape care for Californians grappling with behavioral health issues and homelessness won narrow approval from voters following more than two weeks of vote counting.

“Change has its enemies, change is tough, change is hard,” Newsom said at a press conference in Los Angeles. “These have been a few long weeks, sleepless weeks.”

The measure authorizes the state to borrow nearly $6.4 billion to build residential treatment facilities and affordable apartments while also earmarking a greater share of future mental health dollars for housing.

After breathing a sigh of relief that Proposition 1 was able to survive an unfriendly primary electorate, Newsom aimed much of his remarks at the county governments who will be tasked with implementing many of the measure’s provisions. The governor acknowledged his legacy would hinge in part on the rollout of the measure and related programs at the intersection of behavioral health and homelessness.

“I’ve got three more years here, roughly, to prove that we can make a dent in this,” Newsom said.

The Associated Press called Proposition 1’s victory late Wednesday. The measure currently leads by just under 30,000 votes — out of more than 7 million ballots cast.

A broad bipartisan coalition backed Proposition 1, and supporters vastly outspent a mostly volunteer group of opponents. However, the low turnout in the primary resulted in an electorate that skewed conservative. These voters may have looked askance at the billions in borrowing that the measure proposed, political strategist Marva Diaz said.

“They had an uphill climb here with — there’s a budget deficit, prices are pretty high right now for families and we’re asking them to then say yes on a bond,” said Diaz, the owner and publisher of the California Target Book. “That perfect storm just made it very, very difficult but they ended up pulling it off and it passed.”

Diaz also pointed to the measure’s complexity: In addition to the bond, Proposition 1 will rework the Mental Health Services Act, in part by expanding services to Californians with substance use challenges and setting aside 30% of the act’s revenue for housing.

“It’s always easier to run a ballot measure that is extremely simple and clear to voters,” she said. “The more they have to research, the more they have to unpack, the more they have to figure out themselves, the harder it is to get them to vote yes.”

On Thursday, Newsom said voters may have been skeptical that the housing promised by Proposition 1 would be built quickly, citing the slow rollout of previous state bonds. But the governor pointed to language in the measure that will allow projects to skip environmental review.

“We’re going to start putting out notices for funding availability in just a matter of months, the first ones come out in October,” Newsom said. “That’s unprecedented in California history.”

With funding secured, Newsom turned his attention to California’s county governments, who will largely be tasked with implementing the new behavioral health law.

“We’ve done our job, now the cities and counties need to step up,” Newsom said.

Many of those same counties opposed Proposition 1, fearing that the new focus on housing would reduce funding for the counseling, screening and preventative programs that counties currently bankroll.

Michelle Doty Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association, applauded the new investments in housing but said, “Such a massive shift in our behavioral health care system will take time.”

“Adding new focus and requirements to fund housing placements and substance use disorder services from a source of funding previously dedicated to mental health services will require counties to work in partnership with the state and local communities to identify solutions for the legacy mental health programs currently funded through the MHSA,” Cabrera said in a statement.

Leaders of the campaign against Proposition 1 said they were now bracing for cuts to existing mental health programs, particularly support networks led by Californians with lived experience with behavioral health challenges.

“Anything that says ‘peer’ next to it is endangered,” said Paul Simmons, a leader of the no campaign and former executive director of Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance California.

“We’re going to try to hold [the Newsom administration’s] feet to the fire to make sure that things aren’t cut or that they have to own up to the cuts that are made,” Simmons said.