(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (1) California has realigned public community mental health services to counties, and it is imperative that sufficient community-based resources be available to meet the mental health needs of eligible individuals. (2) Increasing access to effective prevention, early intervention, outpatient, and crisis stabilization services provides an opportunity to reduce costs associated with expensive inpatient and emergency room care and better meet the needs of individuals with mental health disorders in the least restrictive manner possible. (3) Almost one-fifth of people with mental health disorders visit a hospital emergency room at least once per year. If an adequate array of crisis services is not available, it leaves an individual with little choice but to access an emergency room for assistance and, potentially, an unnecessary inpatient hospitalization. (4) Recent reports have called attention to a continuing problem of inappropriate and unnecessary utilization of hospital emergency rooms in California due to limited community-based services for individuals in psychological distress and acute psychiatric crisis. Hospitals report that 70 percent of people taken to emergency rooms for psychiatric evaluation can be stabilized and transferred to a less-intensive level of crisis care. Law enforcement personnel report that their personnel need to stay with people in the emergency room waiting area until a placement is found and that less intensive levels of care tend not to be available. (5) Comprehensive public and private partnerships at both local and regional levels, including across physical health services, mental health, substance use disorder, law enforcement, social services, and related supports, are necessary to develop and maintain high-quality, patient-centered, and cost-effective care for individuals with mental health disorders that facilitates their recovery and leads towards wellness. (6) The recovery of individuals with mental health disorders is important for all levels of government, business, and the local community. (b) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Investment in Mental Health Wellness Act of 2013. The objectives of this section are to do all of the following: (1) Expand access to prevention, early intervention, and treatment services to improve the client experience, achieve recovery and wellness, and reduce costs. (2) Expand the continuum of services to address crisis prevention, crisis intervention, crisis stabilization, and crisis residential treatment needs that are wellness-, resiliency-, and recovery-oriented. (3) Add at least 25 mobile crisis support teams and at least 2,000 crisis stabilization and crisis residential treatment beds to bolster capacity at the local level to improve access to mental health crisis services and address unmet mental health care needs. (4) Add at least 600 triage personnel to provide intensive case management and linkage to services for individuals with a mental health disorder at various points of access, such as at designated community-based service points, homeless shelters, and clinics. (5) Reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and inpatient days by appropriately utilizing community-based services and improving access to timely assistance. (6) Reduce recidivism and mitigate unnecessary expenditures of local law enforcement. (7) Provide local communities with increased financial resources to leverage additional public and private funding sources to achieve improved networks of care for individuals with mental health disorders. (8) (A) Provide a complete continuum of crisis services for children and youth 21 years of age and under regardless of where they live in the state. (B) The funds included in the 2016 Budget Act for the purpose of developing the continuum of mental health crisis services for children and youth 21 years of age and under shall be for the following objectives: (i) Provide
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