Los Angeles Mental Health Services Act Housing Program

HR&A collaborated with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health to design and implement the County’s Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Housing Program. Within 12 months, the original MHSA funds were committed to 30 projects, and together with $131 million of supplemental funding added during subsequent years, the County deployed a total of $243 million to fund 92 developments with 5,400 units, 1,700 of which were targeted to vulnerable populations. 

The Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Housing Program is a voter-approved initiative charged with expanding mental health services in the state of California. Among its many initiatives is a funding allocation to each county to provide pre-development, permanent financing, and capitalized operating subsidies for new, permanent supportive housing for persons with serious mental illness who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. From 2007 to 2019, HR&A served as chief housing consultant to assist with design and implementation of deploying the County’s initial $116 million share of the MHSA Housing program to provide capital and operating subsidy loans for service-enriched, permanent supportive housing for homeless Angelenos.  

HR&A helped Department of Mental Health staff design a process for screening and selecting development proposals for funding, perform initial due diligence review of successful application financing plans, facilitate coordination between the department staff and other funders, and assist the department and California Housing Finance Agency to complete underwriting review of loan applications.  

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Learn more about the program on Los Angeles County’s Mental Health Services Act Website