Newsom OK’s LA County plan to build Norwalk ‘mental health village’ at unused state facility

Most are aware that homelessness and mental health are presenting as a two-fold crisis on the streets of Los Angeles County.

In short, it’s not enough just to find housing for the 75,312 homeless people in the county. That’s because surveys indicated at least 25% of the unhoused on the streets have a serious mental illness, such as psychotic disorders and schizophrenia. Thus, housing without behavioral treatment won’t be successful, experts say.

To help address both problems, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday, Sept. 22, signed Senate Bill 1336, which frees up L.A. County to transform seven vacant buildings at the Metropolitan State Hospital campus in Norwalk into shelters for those removed from the streets, while also providing mental health treatment facilities.

“We are battling a mental health crisis, and we desperately need places where we can treat and house people who are struggling,” said Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn. “These buildings are doing no one any good sitting empty.”

L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health supported the bill. A county report said the biggest barrier to providing mental health services to the unhoused is finding beds. Developing new facilities is difficult because of a lack of available land, the report concluded.

A recent lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles Alliance for Human Rights against L.A. County and L.A. city and a resulting settlement required the county to create 3,000 new residential treatment beds and 450 new board and care service contracts to treat those with mental illness.

Hahn recently toured the state mental hospital grounds, showing state Senate President Pro-Tem Mike McGuire and the bill’s author, state Sen. Bob Archuleta, D-Pico Rivera, the empty buildings. The bill allows a lease for 55 years with a nonprofit or a local government to create housing and psychiatric treatment facilities.

“It is the most underused piece of state property in L.A. County,” Hahn said on Monday, Sept. 23. “We are not going to tear them down. We are going to rehab them.”

The location makes sense to Archuleta and Hahn, who say they’re answering the call from local leaders and constituents to use existing, surplus properties in the fight against homelessness.

The facility is a state-run public hospital specializing in psychiatric care. The 826-bed hospital sits on 162 acres and is within a security perimeter, Hahn reported. It currently admits patients who are: incompetent to stand trial; have mental health disorders; been found not guilty by reason of insanity; or are under conservatorships, a legal means to provide care for mentally ill individuals.

However, a lot of the property is not used, Hahn said. The vacant buildings are separate from the hospital.

In those vacant buildings, the county wants to create 219 mental health beds where homeless individuals suffering acute episodes would get treatment, then after several months, move into housing, Hahn said. Two buildings would be used for permanent supportive housing. Some housing space would be reserved for foster kids transitioning out of the system, she added.

“Over the past decade, California has borne witness to a mental health crisis that has left many of our neighbors with mental illness homeless and on the street,” said Archuleta in a prepared statement. “SB 1336 is a major step forward for the region by getting people the resources they need and off the street and into housing.”

In July, the Board of Supervisors approved 96 new beds for treating mental health needs of the county’s unhoused population at what it calls the county’s Restorative Care Village in Boyle Heights, located on the campus of the Los Angeles General Medical Center. It is scheduled to be completed in 2026.

This past June, the state and the county began negotiating the lease of seven vacant buildings at Metropolitan hospital, in anticipation that SB 1336 would be passed to pave the way. “This is the kind of project that Gov. Newsom advocated for under Proposition 1,” said Hahn in a prepared statement.

Prop. 1, passed by voters in March, gave the state a larger role in working on mental health projects in California counties and cities. Hahn said the county will apply for dollars from Prop. 1. for the project.