Excerpted from the Orange County Register
By Theresa Walker
A group of state and local officials gathered at the Be Well OC mental health services hub in Orange on Friday, Aug. 19, to applaud the on-site programs that began operating in January and celebrate an infusion of $5 million in state funds to help build a second campus.
Speaking at the Be Well OC event, state Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, succinctly summed up the thinking of the day as she thanked senate colleague Tom Umberg and Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, both Democrats, for their bipartisan “heavy lifting” in working with her to secure not only the $5 million for a planned Be Well campus in Irvine but also $2 million for a database that will allow a host of different county departments to seamlessly share information on services provided to homeless and other high need individuals.