Be Well OC to provide mobile mental health services in Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach has entered into a partnership with Be Well Orange County for mobile mental health services.

The Be Well OC mobile response program is expected to lighten the load on law enforcement and emergency medical service members. It will interface with the community and provide crisis intervention support when matters don’t require emergency personnel to handle a call for service.

By a unanimous vote of the Laguna Beach City Council, the city agreed to an initial two-year term with Be Well OC for the services through fiscal year 2024-25. The mobile response team will begin serving the community in July.

“We are available to respond to all mental health, substance use-related, homeless-related, social services-related challenges in an effort to try to alleviate law enforcement of the burden of those calls to keep them active and available for what they’re designed to do, and that’s to enforce the law and keep the community safe,” Marshall Moncrief, chief executive of Be Well OC, said. “What we’ve learned is this works best subservient to law enforcement, and so law enforcement, in this case, oversees our program. We would be reporting in to the chief on how he wants this to operate.

“In the cities that we’re active, 80% of the time, we’re able to meet people’s needs where they are and stabilize the situation where they are,” Moncrief continued. “Sometimes, that’s at a park bench with somebody struggling with homelessness. Sometimes, that’s in the living room of a multimillion-dollar home and a very well-resourced family. Mental health challenges and related challenges don’t discriminate, and we’re available to serve anybody regardless of their socioeconomic status.”

The program will provide coverage in the form of two crisis counselors for 12 hours per day, seven days a week. It will cost $839,828 annually with an additional $35,556 in start-up costs. City staffers said the pilot program is fully funded for the first two years.

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris secured $1.5 million in state funding to support the program. The city also received $405,111 in CARES Act funds from the county for the crisis intervention program.

Be Well Orange County also has contracted services operating in Anaheim, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine and Newport Beach.

The City Council also directed staff to return with a report on the program following the first year of implementation and to explore options for long-term funding.

“The good thing here is that when you look at the cities that are doing this program, it kind of spans different supervisorial districts,” Councilman Alex Rounaghi said. “The key there is how do we get to three supervisors that are supporting using the [Mental Health Services Act] dollars?

“I think that we should be really proactive about working with the county to get a long-term, dedicated revenue stream. … I think Marshall’s exactly right, that this is important, that it’s not a county program, but it’s a local program, but I think it should be funded by the county [Mental Health Services Act] dollars.”