Longtime mental-health advocate Rusty Selix Jr. believed in 1999 that California had found the key to ending chronic homelessness among people with serious mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major and severe depression. The solution was targeting them with a rich array of individual and intensive services, including better case management, help in securing federal entitlements, access to medications, supportive housing, and employment. Selix and other advocates persuaded the state Assembly that year to fund a $10 million pilot program in three counties, including Los Angeles, to test the treatment regime.