County outlines housing and treatment expansion; stakeholders warn jack list and housing subsidy pauses are creating a bottleneck

The Public Safety & Justice Committee held a study session on April 10 to review how the county’s supportive‑housing system and behavioral health treatment expansion interact with justice‑involved populations. County staff from the Office of Supportive Housing (OSH), Behavioral Health Services Department (BHSD), community‑based providers, and justice partners described progress and an immediate capacity challenge: a growing “jack list” of people held in custody because housing or treatment placement is unavailable.

County presentation: OSH and BHSD staff outlined the countywide housing and treatment system and recent progress. Key points presented:

- Since 2020 the county set a target to house 20,000 people; as of December 2024 the county reported 17,485 people housed toward that goal. OSH said the system now has approximately 7,734 permanent housing opportunities when pipeline projects are included. The county reported a record year in 2023 with multiple projects opening and roughly 1,000 units added that year.

- OSH said the county operates a large temporary housing network and that its base annual investment in temporary shelter is about $47 million for roughly 1,900 shelter beds across the county.

- BHSD described a multi‑pronged behavioral‑health treatment facility expansion. Staff said they previously had access to about 1,000 treatment beds for behavioral health and had set a goal of adding 530 additional beds; since then, staff said they have added 208 beds and another 227 are in progress and the county hopes to reach a total goal of about 1,600 beds by the following February (staff presented the figures as reported at the meeting and characterized them as in‑progress targets).

Stakeholder and provider perspective: Community providers and court partners told the committee they are seeing substantial increases in people needing housing with intensive treatment supports, and they identified two immediate policy problems:

1) A “jack list” of justice‑involved people awaiting linkage to treatment‑connected housing and placement is growing. Providers and the courts gave multiple measures of the backlog: Community Solutions reported 154–170 people on the list in recent counts; the public defender’s office said the jack list was in the mid‑120s in January and had grown to roughly 170 as of the Monday before the meeting; the public defender also said the top 20 people on the jack list had waits of two to five months and the office had removed many people from that list due to long waits.

2) A pause/freezing of new housing subsidies for Full Service Partnership (FSP) programs has been in place since October, providers said, meaning new referrals were limited and housing supports were being allocated on a “one in / one out” basis in some programs. Providers said the freeze was harming FDR (forensic diversion/reentry) clients and broader FSP clients because slots could not be added as new people became eligible.

County finance and program response: BHSD and county budget staff explained the pause stemmed from a contract administration issue with Abode (a contractor) and projections that the current contract and available funding would be exceeded. BHSD said it had advanced some one‑time funds and negotiated a limited expansion that added 25 people from the jack list into the program; Abode contract adjustments were made in late March. BHSD said a multi‑month projection suggested continuing budget pressure in FY2026 absent additional funding, and county staff said they would present more detailed fiscal analysis at the county’s May report on behavioral health finances.

Court and justice partners: Judge Manley and collaborative‑court partners warned that long waits in custody can incentivize defendants to choose to remain jailed rather than accept treatment options that are not timely or stable. Providers including Community Solutions and Gartner Health Services said housing subsidies are a core part of treatment—they described MHSA‑funded Full Service Partnerships as historically dependent on rental subsidies to stabilize clients so clinical treatment can take effect—and they urged the county to identify flexible funds or reserves to relieve the immediate bottleneck.

Supervisor direction and vote: After extended discussion, the committee voted to receive the study session materials and directed staff to convene a technical/fiscal meeting with county budget, BHSD, OSH and community providers to identify near‑term options for addressing the jack list and the housing subsidy pause. The committee also asked for a biannual PSJC update on jack list status. Vice Chair Lee and Chair Ellenberg voted yes.

Why it matters: The county has greatly expanded housing and treatment capacity in recent years, but providers and courts say immediate operational gaps—housing subsidy freezes, treatment waiting lists and site licensing constraints—are keeping people in custody who could receive community‑based treatment. Stakeholders argued that, for many justice‑involved people with severe mental illness, community treatment plus housing is both clinically superior and less costly than prolonged custody.

What’s next: County staff said they will present a behavioral‑health fiscal update in the May county report; they also agreed to convene a provider‑county budget workgroup and to provide PSJC with biannual jack list updates so the board can track progress and identify funding tradeoffs.