Our Community Cannot Wait – VLF Funding is Vital

Hear from an Aspire House staff member who stood before a Senate Budget Committee and made the case for restoring Vehicle License Fee funding, a critical source of revenue for San Mateo County worth over $100 million annually that funds mental health services, housing, and essential community programs. Read below to see her statement.

Honorable members of the California State Senate Subcommittee, my name is Naliah Kelley, and I’m a social practitioner at Aspire House, a mental health nonprofit in San Mateo. San Mateo County is owed over $114 million. This isn’t charity—this is OUR money. Money that Sacramento is withholding while our constituents die.

Every day you wait, someone doesn’t wake up.

I‘ve lived this. I know the sharp ache of hunger pangs that won’t stop, the isolation of living on the outskirts of society, what it means to be seen yet unseen because of mental illness. I’ve stood on that edge where a therapist, a case manager, a doctor means the difference between life and death.

Every day you wait, someone doesn’t wake up.

I’ve witnessed firsthand what programs like Aspire House can do for people with serious mental health challenges—they don’t just help, they transform lives. Aspire House improves well-being through higher employment rates, better physical and mental health, and decreases in mental health hospitalization. A year of Aspire House services costs the same as two weeks in the hospital. These services are FREE to members because of county resources provided through VLF funding.

Right now, loneliness is an epidemic in San Mateo County. The VLF funds we’re OWED—not requesting, but DEMANDING—will ease the gnawing hunger of families choosing between rent and groceries, shelter the unhoused freezing on our streets, create jobs, and build communities where children, seniors, and the differently-abled can thrive.

Every day you wait, someone doesn’t wake up.

This money provides addiction treatment that keeps people out of jail. It funds the social safety net of psychiatrists, counselors, and case managers that literally saves lives. This funding breaks the cycle of poverty. It restores self-worth. It gives people back their dignity, their futures.

Fifty-five counties get their full share—why not us?

We won’t stop fighting BECAUSE EVERY DAY YOU WAIT, SOMEONE DOESN’T WAKE UP.

For those who continue to withhold what legally belongs to San Mateo County, the blood of those constituents who die waiting for housing, treatment, and care is on YOUR hands.

Naliah, Aspire House staff making her statement before the Senate Budget Committee and Naliah (pictured far left) with Supervisor Jackie Speier at a VLF rally in Redwood City