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State highlights CARE Act, SB 43 and full-service partnership metrics in behavioral-health accountability
Summary
California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Johnson described behavioral-health initiatives tied to homelessness response — the CARE Act (a civil court process), Senate Bill 43 conservatorship reforms, and expanded full-service partnerships — and said the new accountability dashboard will show counties' implementation progress.
Kim Johnson, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, outlined behavioral-health priorities the state will track on the new dashboard, including implementation of the CARE Act, conservatorship reforms enacted through Senate Bill 43 and expansion of full-service partnerships for people with severe behavioral-health needs.
“The CARE Act is a new civil court process and creates a new pathway to deliver mental health and substance use disorder services to the most severely impaired Californians,” Johnson said, describing CARE as a mechanism intended to prioritize people with the greatest needs while balancing self-determination and system accountability.
Johnson said the administration's dashboard will include three key metrics: CARE implementation, conservatorship (SB 43) implementation and the number of people receiving full-service partnership behavioral-health services. She noted that the CARE process and full-service partnerships are intended to support stable housing and reduce homelessness among people with severe behavioral-health conditions.
On Senate Bill 43, Johnson said the law modernizes conservatorship statutes to permit conservatorship when a person with serious mental illness or severe substance use disorder is at imminent risk; she added that SB 43 goes into effect for all counties by 2026 and that some counties have already implemented elements of the law.
Johnson linked the behavioral-health metrics to housing outcomes, noting that housing stability is a foundational element of recovery and that the dashboard will help state and local partners measure how many people are being served through these higher-intensity programs and whether those services are leading to stable housing.
Johnson and governor's office officials said the dashboard will show which counties have implemented CARE and SB 43 and will report counts of people in full-service partnerships, while noting the site is an iterative tool that will be expanded with additional datasets and local reporting.
