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California: NEARLY 12,000 PEOPLE REACHED: Governor Newsom thanks county-level teams and state partners at CARE Act convening

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Nov 9, 2026

NEARLY 12,000 PEOPLE REACHED: Governor Newsom thanks county-level teams and state partners at CARE Act convening

What you need to know: Governor Newsom attended the CARE Act Implementation Convening to celebrate a momentous achievement with nearly 12,000 people connected to services through the CARE Act process. The Governor met with local implementers and state partners providing CARE services, highlighting progress statewide. CARE is a key component of the Governor's successful framework to improve behavioral health services and reduce homelessness.

SACRAMENTO – Following a historic two-year drop in homelessness, Governor Gavin Newsom attended the CARE Act Implementation Convening to highlight progress in CARE Act implementation across the state and thank CARE providers at the county and state levels. Since CARE was implemented statewide in December 2024, 11,912 Californians have connected with service providers through the CARE Act process, with  6,531 petitions filed for those with severe mental illness across 56 counties.

The announcement follows the release of new data showing homelessness dropping for the second year in a row, including a historic 13% drop in unsheltered homelessness since 2024. The Governor also recently announced the first behavioral health center opening funded by Prop 1, which is delivering 102% of the inpatient beds and 104% of the outpatient treatment slots promised in less than two years since voters passed the measure.

These results prove that CARE is working as a front door, acting as the cornerstone of the state's work to modernize California's behavioral health system and confront homelessness after decades of systemic failure, by connecting people who have been historically out of reach and underserved to the voluntary support they need to thrive. Not everyone needs a court, but everyone deserves to be served. The progress we're seeing across the state is a testament to the commitment of CARE providers, and proof that this new avenue of care is reaching people who may not have been reached before.

Governor Gavin Newsom

Almost 1,800 Californians now have a CARE agreement or plan, a more than 250% growth in one year, and more than 5,381 people have been connected to treatment outside the formal process.

CARE is seeing results:

✅  The share of CARE participants living in housing rose from 53% to 71% from the time they were petitioned to the most recent reporting month.

✅   Nearly half of the people who came in unhoused are now sheltered or housed.

✅   69% of those entering from institutions or facilities moved into temporary or permanent housing.

✅  Use of mental health services rose from 77% to 87%, and use of stabilizing medication rose from 47% to 61%.

✅  Nearly 6 in 10 active participants are getting all three key supports: medication, treatment, and housing.

In the early implementation months, families filed most petitions. Now system partners like hospitals, clinicians, and public guardians file most petitions, about 61%; petitions originating from people within the system are more likely to end in an agreement.

Attending the convening were county behavioral health providers, service providers, judges, court staff, public defenders, and public guardians, along with representatives from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), California Behavioral Health Directors Association, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California Department of State Hospitals, the Judicial Council of California, and the State Bar of California.

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Ten counties were placed in the "Care ICU"  because they were below the statewide petition-filing average (6.2 petitions per 100,000 pop.). With intensive technical assistance, all ten "ICU" counties are demonstrating much progress, and most are now above the statewide average. Fresno and Kern Counties, in particular, have shown notable advancements, with Fresno County doubling and Kern County tripling its number of petitions since last year.

Repairing California's behavioral health system

In 2019, during his first State of the State, Governor Newsom announced that addressing the homelessness and mental health crises would become a new state priority — making him the first Governor to launch a statewide strategy to address these challenges.

Today, across California, individuals with untreated psychosis are 10 times more likely to experience homelessness and 16 times more likely to be incarcerated.

Through Governor Newsom's work, California is repairing its behavioral health continuum — building new treatment facilities, expanding the workforce of care, establishing new programs to address unique needs and get people help and shelter, providing vital funding to communities, and creating stronger accountability measures and expectations to ensure everyone is doing their part.

California has awarded $6.1 billion in behavioral health infrastructure funding to support 535 new facilities, 9,570 beds, and 44,863 treatment slots statewide.

Addressing mental health and homelessness

Governor Newsom is the first Governor to make addressing homelessness  — an issue decades in the making — a top priority. Since taking office in 2019, the Governor has made unprecedented policy and structural changes in state government to help California better address its housing and homelessness crises, including additional support for local governments, stronger accountability and enforcement, transformational changes to mental health services and state government, and groundbreaking reforms to create more housing, faster than ever before.

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Together, these efforts have helped California achieve a two-year drop in homelessness, with preliminary estimates showing unsheltered homelessness declining for the second consecutive year — down nearly 13% since 2024.

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