County leaders met with the health secretary in hopes of galvanizing federal support for tackling addiction and homelessness.
LOS ANGELES—At a private meeting with Los Angeles County officials on May 15, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised the county’s “impressive” approach to tackling an unprecedented and deeply intertwined mental health, addiction, and homelessness crisis.
“I wanted to come here because this is the biggest system in the country, and it has the reputation of doing things really well—and I can see why. This is an extraordinary caliber,” Kennedy told a small group of public health officials and community partners at the close of an hour-long meeting at the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration.
Overdose deaths are down, primarily as a result of naloxone distribution, public health officials said, and youth education programs are improving attendance and academic achievement. County leaders have also begun paying attention to the little things, such as warm lighting and matching furniture in treatment facilities.
Dr. Gary Tsai, director of the county’s Substance Abuse Prevention and Control Bureau, described a comprehensive approach to engaging people with addiction—including the 95 percent who say they don’t need or want treatment.
“We try to look at the continuum from the perspective of a person who lives in our community and make sure that all along there are services and support for that person, as opposed to thinking of it as being little pieces,” Tsai said.
He pointed to a 200 percent increase in residential beds since 2017, a 50 percent increase in outpatient services, and a more than 800 percent increase in the department’s recovery-oriented, or sober living, housing.
“Thank you so much for figuring out how to increase all that sober housing,” Kennedy said. “That’s what we’re trying to do, too. That’s very much a priority.”
L.A. County’s dynamic approaches to prevention and treatment warrant nationalization, said Kennedy, who in February announced a $100 million investment in the Trump administration’s “Great American Recovery.”
The project is part of the administration’s seismic shift away from what it calls “misguided” Biden-era policies that enabled substance abuse, homelessness, and a deterioration of public safety, and toward programs that emphasize prevention, recovery, and self-sufficiency, including faith-based models.
This has put it at odds with California, where “housing first” and “harm reduction” policies—which prohibit conditioning housing on treatment, and de-emphasize sobriety and recovery—remain enshrined in state law.
Critics say the Trump administration’s cuts to Medicaid, which overwhelmingly funds addiction and mental health treatment, along with its new homelessness policies, will exacerbate the crisis.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, long an advocate of expanding behavioral health infrastructure, convened the meeting to bridge that divide and galvanize federal support.
“This meeting was a valuable opportunity to foster dialogue between Los Angeles County health leaders and our federal partners. Tackling complex challenges like serious mental illness, addiction, and homelessness requires true collaboration across all levels of government,” said Barger, the lone Republican on the county’s five-member Board of Supervisors.
Often a lone voice willing to scrap progressive orthodoxy on these issues in favor of a range of approaches, including sobriety and faith-based models, Barger said she was proud to highlight meaningful work the county has done.
The supervisor is hoping to secure federal support that will allow California to scale its response to the crisis before she is termed out in 2028, she said.
