A new mental health campus is coming to historic state hospital in Norwalk

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The Metropolitan State Hospital opened in Norwalk in 1916, a self-contained facility complete with its own farm that treated people with mental illness.Over the decades, the facility drastically shrank, reflecting a larger deinstitutionalization sweeping the state and country amid concerns over abuse at state psychiatric hospitals.Now, the hospital, which treats mostly people involved with the justice system, is expanding to alleviate the county’s overlapping mental health and homelessness crisis, in what proponents described as a more compassionate approach than in the past.On Friday, state and local officials held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Los Angeles County Care Community, which will open over the next few years in six now-vacant buildings at the state hospital.In all, there will be more than 150 beds available for people with mental health challenges, including 32 for young adults facing a severe crisis.

The new campus will be run by the county, but major funding for the effort comes from Proposition 1, a Gov.Gavin Newsom-backed measure voters approved in 2024 that increased state funding for housing units where people are treated for substance abuse and mental health challenges.

“We have residents — many of them young people — who are struggling with serious mental illness and have no where to go,” L.A.County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement.

“By locking arms with the state, LA County is transforming these vacant buildings into a mental healthcare village where people can get the safe, professional, and compassionate treatment and housing they desperately need.”The new village represents at least a small shift toward addressing the state’s homelessness and mental health crises with more mandatory programs.In 2023, after a push by Newsom, the state launched a program known as CARE Court that enables judges to mandate mental health treatme...