Long Beach’s Health and Human Services Department is continuing its efforts to increase mental health resources for youth in the city.
The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health recently awarded the department a $1.2 million grant for its mental health program to support efforts focused on reducing the number of transition-aged youth and LGBTQ+ youth who are at risk of becoming homeless.
Officials refer to transition-aged youth as young people ages 16 to 25, who often face challenges during this developmental stage.
“We want to thank and acknowledge LA County for this important funding,” Mayor Rex Richardson said during the Tuesday, May 6, City Council meeting. “It’s going to support our health department’s efforts to provide accessible prevention and early intervention of mental health services.”
The $1.2 million came from the state’s Mental Health Services Act grant funding for the a period of around April 1 to June 30, 2026, according to the staff report.
This will help Long Beach’s mental health program expand, officials said, and provide accessible, culturally appropriate prevention and early intervention mental health services for youth. It will also improve the overall mental health landscape in the city.
“We’re excited to share this funding opportunity with recommendations laid out in the 2023 report,” said health department Director Alison King, “establishing a robust mental health system in Long Beach, also referred to as our Mental Health Report.”
In November 2021, the City Council directed the city manager to work with the health department and local mental health providers to explore the feasibility of establishing a more robust infrastructure for mental health services in collaboration with LA County, according to the staff report.
The health department began convening a mental health advisory group in May 2022, and hosted meetings to get input regarding the strengths and challenges of the mental health system, focusing on the populations of concern – including children and youth in schools, adults living with depression and anxiety, homeless people and those in crisis.
“In the initial convening of the mental health advisory group,” Allison Wolinsky, the city’s mental health program manager, said during the council meeting, “members anchored their work in the vision statement that in Long Beach, all community members have an open path to access and receive the mental health support they need to thrive.”
The four identified focus areas, goals and strategies laid out in the mental health report seek to:
Increase mental health treatment capacity by building the mental health workforce and exploring additional and alternative funding mechanisms.
Increase delivery of mental health services.
Improve access to treatment by increasing knowledge about the system, simplifying access through coordinated efforts and increasing capacity in services at all levels, from prevention to intensive care.
Focus efforts on homeless people and transition-aged youth due to data-informed disproportionate poor mental health outcomes.
Supported by this grant, the city’s mental health program will directly address community-requested prevention activities outlined within the focus areas of the report, Wolinsky said.
“The health department is actively aligning these strategic priorities to statewide reforms, funding changes, and housing and treatment expansions,” she said, “while continuing to prioritize improved mental health outcomes for the community.”
The department, Wolinsky added, is proactively engaged in planning efforts, utilizing funding opportunities, such as Proposition 1, and ensuring Long Beach has a strong voice in shaping the future of behavioral health services.
City staffers will work to ensure transition-aged youth, especially individuals who have experience in the foster care system, and LGBTQ+ youth receive a response that supports their needs with this grant funding. These youth populations are disproportionately impacted by homelessness and mental health disorders, officials said.
“Prevention and early intervention efforts are among the most effective strategies in mental health care, reducing the severity of mental illness, lowering long-term treatment costs, and improving overall quality of life,” Wolinsky said. “In Long Beach, these efforts are especially critical to improving mental health outcomes and reducing the likelihood that transitional age youth and LGBTQ+ youth experience homelessness for the first time.”
The Long Beach City Council approved the acceptance of the award to the health department in a 7-0 vote Tuesday.
The grant will allow the city’s mental health program to address recommendations outlined in the report that do not currently have a funding source, including community-requested prevention resources and services, increased accessibility to mental health services, increased treatment capacity, and provision of additional prevention and early intervention activities.
Those community-requested resources and services include purchasing, launching and advertising a population-level web-based mental health prevention and early intervention platform; updating the mental health resource guide; sustaining the mental health awareness campaign; and updating, reviewing and disseminating trauma-informed training to community mental health providers.
