REPORT: JAILING MENTALLY ILL COSTLY.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Three decades after the closure of state psychiatric hospitals put mentally ill people on the streets of Los Angeles County, the government provides care only to the most mentally ill and wastes money jailing thousands, according to a study released Monday.

The Little Hoover Commission report found that the government has failed to provide community-based treatment and that by treating only the most seriously mentally ill, it has missed the opportunity to provide more cost-effective care.

``We ration care to only the most severely disabled,'' commission chairman Richard R. Terzian said at a press conference at the Salvation Army homeless shelter in Bell. ``And even then we often turn people away because adequate resources have not been budgeted.''

While the state spends $2 billion a year on community mental health programs, the criminal justice system spends up to $1.8 billion more as a safety net for the failing mental health system, the report found.

The Sheriff's Department's Twin Towers Correctional Facility spends more than $16 million a year, including nearly $5 million on psychotropic drugs alone, to treat 2,300 mentally ill people.

``We are the largest mental health institution in the state, maybe the nation,'' said Correctional Services Division Chief John E. Anderson.

While the county could provide community-based care to the mentally ill for $1,500 to $35,000 a year, the costs of jailing those people run $26,800 a year.

``These figures suggest it is more cost-effective to treat clients in the community than in custody,'' the report found.

Recent legislation will give the state $54 million a year for three years to spend on new mental health programs, including $18 million for Los Angeles County.

County officials hope to use part of that money to build a 400-bed outpatient facility to move mentally ill people out of the jails.

The report found that more than 5 million Californians - or about 22 percent of the population - experience a mental illness each year. About 9 percent of those people have an illness that impairs their ability to function. About 57 percent of homeless people are mentally ill.

The county Department of Mental Health treated 169,835 mentally ill people in fiscal year 1999-00, including 24,152 in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys and 5,741 in the Antelope Valley.

County Mental Health Director Marvin J. Southard said the county has excellent mental health programs, but a ``lousy system'' in which the programs are not linked together. He said the department is in the ``beginning stages'' of fixing the problems.

In the Valley, Southard said, the most visible populations of mentally ill homeless people are at Hansen Dam and downtown Van Nuys.