Policy & Legislation
SB 851 Now Includes PROMISE
After months of lobbying by the Homes to End Homelessness Coalition for PROMISE (Program for Returning Offenders with Mental Illness Safely and Effectively), the 2007-2008 state budget appropriated $4 million for wraparound and residential services for mentally ill parolees within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR). However, the budget did not incorporate the coalition’s specific proposal for spending the funds.
Now, the coalition has teemed up with Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), to include the language in his SB 851. If SB 851 is not signed into law this year, the coalition will work with DCR to try to convince them to use the PROMISE model.
In an effort to ensure that PROMISE is not removed from the budget by the governor, Housing California and other organizations asked prominent Californians to write the governor directly and advocate that he not cut any homeless funding -- including Integrated Services for Adults with Severe Mental Illness (AB 2034), the Emergency Housing Assistance Program (EHAP), transitional housing program for emancipated foster youth (THP-Plus), and PROMISE -- as it is vital for the completion of many of his draft Ten Year Chronic Homelessness Action Plan goals. A letter was sent with the signatures of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, John Blankfort of the Butler Family Fund, and Sandra Hernández from the San Francisco Foundation. Several others sent letters of their own to the governor, including former Senate pro Tempore John Burton, Bishop Oscar Solis of the Diocese of Los Angeles, and President Lucy Dunn of the Orange County Business Council. Please join this group and fax a letter of support for homeless funding to the governor as soon as possible.
Contact: Zack Olmstead, (916) 447-0503 x 108 or .
