Mental Health

CalMatters and CatchLight are partnering on a three-year initiative to tell powerful stories about mental health in California. We’ll spotlight solutions, personal stories, investigate systems, and bring greater awareness to this historically stigmatized topic. This initiative is supported by:

Enlight Foundation
California Health Care Foundation
Flourish Impact Fund
Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Foundation
Resonance Philanthropies
Sarlo Family Foundation
Sand Hill Foundation
Stuart Foundation

Health

Kaiser mental health workers prepare to strike, this time in Southern California

The strike would be the second one in a little more than two years by California mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente. The clock is ticking to avoid a walkout.

Jocelyn Wiener

• October 11, 2024

Health

The doctor who shaped Gavin Newsom’s COVID response is stepping down

Mark Ghaly has been a steady voice in Gov. Gavin Newsom's cabinet, shaping the administration's COVID policies and its efforts to bring down the cost of health care.

Ana B. Ibarra

and

Kristen Hwang

• September 6, 2024

A lawmaker, wearing a tan suit and blue tie, standing in front of a podium with white pillars and red curtains in the background of the Senate Floor at the state Capitol in Sacramento.

Digital Democracy

Lawmakers say Newsom staff ‘inflated’ cost of failed health care bills

A trio of California Democratic lawmakers say they’re frustrated by high cost estimates that helped kill their health care legislation. Did the Newsom administration inflate the numbers to quietly kill the bills?

Ryan Sabalow

and

Jocelyn Wiener

• August 27, 2024

Flanked by state lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom shakes another lawmakers hand in celebration while seated at a desk at a Home Depot in San Jose.

Capitol

Which of these 2024 California bills did Gavin Newsom sign into law?

For California laws, the buck does really stop at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. While the Legislature approved hundreds of bills before ending its regular session on Aug. 31, Newsom decides whether they become law. He finished on Sept. 30 — and vetoed about 18% of nearly 1,000 bills passed in the final days (and nearly […]

CalMatters Staff

• August 27, 2024

Health

Can’t find a doctor? California bill would punish insurers for giving customers outdated info

Patients looking for doctors who will take their insurance often find the list of doctors provided by their insurance companies are inaccurate or out of date. Insurers and doctors are fighting a bill that would fine insurers for having “ghost networks” that aren’t accurate.

Ryan Sabalow

• July 29, 2024

Mental Health

California sent a mentally ill man to a state hospital. Then it charged him $760,000

California State Hospitals can bill patients for the care they receive during confinement. The charges often run in the tens of thousands of dollars, putting vulnerable people in debt for years.

Jocelyn Wiener

• July 18, 2024

Dr. Rishi Patel from the Akido street medicine team checks on an unhoused man living in a vineyard in Arvin on May 28, 2024. Street medicine teams throughout California are increasingly using long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication to stabilize the mental health of people living in homeless encampments. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Homelessness

How shots instead of pills could change California’s homeless crisis

Doctors on the front lines of California’s homelessness and mental health crises are using monthly injections to treat psychosis in their most vulnerable patients.

Marisa Kendall

• June 4, 2024

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in support of Prop. 1 during a press conference at the United Domestic Workers of America building in San Diego on Feb. 29, 2024. Photo by Kristian Carreon for CalMatters

Mental Health

Newsom releases billions for mental health housing ahead of schedule: ‘Time to deliver’

California voters narrowly passed Proposition 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom's measure to fund mental health housing. He's prodding counties to use the money quickly.

Jocelyn Wiener

• May 15, 2024

An inmate's cell in the inmate housing unit at the Tulare County Adult Pre-Trial Facility on Sept. 18, 2023. In 2022, Tulare County had eight inmate deaths in their facility, the deadliest year in the jail’s history. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters/CatchLight Local

Justice

How a suicide crisis led to change in one small California county jail

“Jail suicides are extraordinarily difficult to protect against,” a retired California sheriff said. One jail in the San Joaquin Valley is changing routines to keep inmates from harming themselves.

Nigel Duara

• May 6, 2024

Mental Health

We’re investigating mental health insurance denials in California. What should we know?

California law requires insurance plans to cover medically necessary mental health and addiction treatment. That doesn’t always happen.

Jocelyn Wiener

• April 22, 2024