For the past year or so California Mental Health Director’s Association (CMHDA) has been working collaboratively with the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) and the state Department of Mental Health (DMH) to develop an MHSA Housing Program that fulfills our shared goal of developing a significant increase in supportive housing for our communities. As a result of this unique partnership, CalHFA will administer the MSHA Housing Program on a statewide basis. Planning estimates will be transferred by DMH on behalf of the County to CalHFA. Counties will execute an Assignment Letter agreeing to the transfer of the funds on their behalf. CalHFA will hold the funds and invest the funds. The County may access the funds through submission and approval of an MHSA Housing Program Application. DMH and CalHFA have joint approval of all projects.

            MHSA Housing Program applications are considered updates to a county’s Community Services and Supports (CSS) Three-Year Program and Expenditure Plan. Housing Program Projects must be designed with the goal of establishing and/or strengthening partnerships that result in development of housing that reflects local priorities, and expands safe, affordable housing options for individuals with serious mental illness or youth with serious emotional disturbance and their families. Each supported housing project must have a Supportive Services Plan that describes the approach to providing ongoing supportive services to the occupants of the housing.

 Stanislaus County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services has an established history of collaboration with key community partners in the development of supported housing since 1997 when Garvey House was established.  Discussions are ongoing with local partners to continuously investigate opportunities for funding and suitable properties for development into supported housing sites. This history of collaboration combined with stakeholder input, obtained during initial CSS Community Planning Process that addressed unmet housing need for all age groups, will be utilized in developing permanent supportive housing through the MHSA Housing Program.

Public review and comment of proposed supported housing projects will take place prior to submission of the MHSA Housing application to DMH and CalHFA. No public hearing is required. Two different projects ideas are in preliminary development and hopefully will result in submission of applications in 2008. To complete a project, funds will need to be leveraged with other forms of financing, the total amount of the MHSA Housing planning estimate for Stanislaus County is $4.8 million.