SAN DIEGO — San Diego County still has tens of millions of dollars remaining in federal pandemic relief funds.
How will they be spent?
On Tuesday, the County Board of Supervisors will take up the critical issue of how to allocate these dollars.
The roughly $80 million in federal pandemic relief funds must be spent by the end of 2026.
Two major proposals center on creating more recuperative care beds for homeless San Diegans, and increasing the number of behavioral health care workers here in San Diego County.
"It's a really unique and creative funding stream, so that we're able to get the biggest bang for our buck," said Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who is proposing using part of these funds for a new recuperative care center, equipped to take in patients after hospital treatment, providing roughly 100 beds for unsheltered San Diegans.
This new proposal, which would prevent a backlog of available beds in full-service hospitals, would essentially double the current number of recuperative beds available county-wide.
Lawson-Remer said this would require about $8 million in county funds, and would bring in about $35 million in operating funds over the next five years.
"What's really exciting about his proposal is, we would just need to invest the upfront money to build the facility, but then the ongoing cost for the operation and maintenance, the ongoing care.... that would be reimbursed by the federal government," she explained.
"In this instance, they (recuperative care beds) are life-saving," said John Brady, executive director of Lived Experience Advisers, a group of formerly homeless individuals advocating for those who are unsheltered.
He said that funding more recuperative beds county-wide is critical for San Diego's unsheltered population.
"People need surgeries," he told CBS 8, "These are life-saving surgeries, but they have to have a safe and sterile environment to recuperate in while they're in recovery, and we do not have those beds."
Another proposal for these funds is to spend $24 million to increase the number of behavioral health care workers in San Diego County.
A recent study by the San Diego Workforce Partnership finds that the county will need 18,500 more behavioral health care workers by 2027.
"So we would be training and helping 'skill up' a whole bunch of behavioral health workers across the county, as well as supporting some of our smaller community clinics," Lawson-Remer said.
Already, some of these federal funds have been approved to help support migrants seeking asylum to move on to their final destination, and also increase the number of recovery beds in substance-abuse treatment facilities.
Another key decision to be made at this meeting, the first regular meeting of 2024, is who will lead the board in the coming year.
Also on Tuesday's agenda: the board will consider updating its public participation rules during public comment to try to crack down on disruptive or harassing behavior. One possible option includes reducing the amount of time people have to speak.
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