Santa Barbara Supervisors Hear How Mental Health Grants Might Be Spent
Building Facilities for More Beds and More Rehabilitation Centers
During California’s March primary election, voters approved Prop. 1, which allocated $3.3 billion toward mental-health treatment facilities. On Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors agenda was a seemingly simple request to approve grant applications for a slice of that money. It’s anything but.
While mental-health advocates urged the supervisors to only approve grant applications that had exact details of what was being funded, Behavioral Wellness director Toni Navarro was careful to only say that building a facility is complicated — and her team hadn’t yet figured out the details, including how much money the county will ask for.
As an example of the complexities, Navarro noted during a conversation after the Tuesday morning session that Prop. 1 changes its funding structure in 2026, the implications of which must be factored in. Another thing to keep an eye on was the level of funding available in federal dollars for, say, a rehab center versus a crisis center, she said.
BWell intends to add eight beds to the current 16 beds at the acute-care facility, known as the PHF, pronounced “PUF,” which is housed in the old county hospital, Navarro said.
And the locked facility advocates asked for was “definitely in our plan,” Navarro said. One speaker on Tuesday explained how his son “has no insight into his illness,” expressing the need for a location where his son could be treated on an involuntary basis. And while Navarro said she understood the need expressed by advocates, once a patient came out of an acute crisis in the PUF unit, they then needed a place where they could still receive intensive subacute services. That would be the goal of what BWell hopes to build in both North and South County if the grant is funded.
The grants would seek a permanent location for the sobering center, which is in temporary quarters after flooding last year. “We have to think long-term in the county, how programs are funded, how to sustain a facility,” Navarro said, to serve general and incarcerated populations. She said her team would figure this all out and complete the application in the next few weeks. The official deadline for designs and architect plans is December 13.
Correction: The “PHF” unit is the Psychiatric Health Facility, which is pronounced, but not spelled as this story original had it, “PUF.”
