Will the Legislature help with mental-health challenges?

During the run-up to opening day at the 2023 Legislature on Feb. 6, Gov. Joe Lombardo and legislative leaders sparred about criminal-justice reform, the protection of reproductive rights, the correct level of education funding—and how best to spend Nevada’s budget surplus to address crumbling prisons, highways and other capital improvements while saving an appropriate amount of money in the state’s “Rainy Day” fund.

One key issue receiving far less attention was the reform of Nevada’s mental health care system, although Lombardo did announce the expansion of forensic services in Southern Nevada, including expensive new facilities. The emphasis on forensic needs is no surprise; as a former Clark County sheriff, Lombardo understands the mental-health pipeline into our state’s jails and prison system very well. Hopefully, the forensic focus will be more on effective treatment and supportive care rather than endless competency evaluations which churn offenders through the system, spitting them out with little more than a bus ticket.

Lombardo also plans to expand Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) throughout the state to increase capacity for outpatient treatment. While the enhanced Medicaid rate is welcomed by the community-based organizations willing to become CCBHCs, it’s not enough to develop the extensive supportive services needed by individuals with severe mental illness to lead safe, productive lives.

Nevada desperately needs a more comprehensive and creative approach to mental health care reform, especially for those who are treatment-resistant and prefer to live on the street with their personal demons than in crowded noisy shelters where they are preyed upon, or in poorly run group homes where living conditions aren’t much better than the river. The best way to assist them is a combination of regulated subsidized housing and community teams to provide comprehensive care 24/7, through evidence-based models like Assertive Community Treatment, which includes medical and mental health care along with intensive case management.

In Washoe County, Judge Cynthia Lu oversees the Assisted Outpatient Treatment program designed to reduce incarceration and involuntary hospitalizations by providing housing, treatment and medications, and intensive case management to those who are historically non- compliant with treatment. The program works, but only with sufficient housing resources and well-trained, well-compensated staff—two com ponents the program struggles to provide. could help address the housing problem, howev er. The Clark Regional Behavioral Health Board has submitted Senate Bill 68 to build affordable housing for Nevadans with behavioral-health concerns, the chronically homeless and those with other disabilities; it would be funded by a small increase in the real property transfer tax. The tax is collected when a property is sold, although a recent investigation by the Review-Journal worth of sales involving casinos, malls and other properties close to the Strip avoided the tax, thanks to legal loopholes exploited by savvy corporations with good lawyers. If the Legisla ture tightened the law, millions of dollars would be generated for low-income housing, education and the state’s general fund. gambling palaces, however, making the passage of SB 68 imperative. Taxpayers will save money in jail costs and hospitalizations, and many low-income Nevadans living with disabilities and mental-health challenges will be able to

Tesla once and for all that Nevada’s kids matter

| BY JIMMY BOEGLE