STATEWIDE -- Texas lawmakers are expanding a grant program that targets mental health. The Community Collaborative is an expansion of a pilot program state lawmakers created two years ago.

That first program targeted mental health initiatives for veterans. The expanded program creates community collaboratives, and it allows them to apply for matching grants from the state.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, advocated for the increased focus on mental health.

"It leverages ideas from local communities," said Greg Hansch of NAMI Texas. "It is not a one-size-fits-all model for the State of Texas."

Small Texas counties are required to put up a 50-percent match in order to get the state grants. Counties with at least 250,000 residents are eligible for a one-to-one match.

"These are things that, if a particular community really needs something, now they have a place to draw down the money to get it," said Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, who authored HB 13. "Now, we are giving better treatment options, we are increasing the workforce, we are broadening our capacity, we are helping our state hospitals. We are doing a lot of things that needed to be done."

Hansch said mental illness affects large swaths of Texans.

"We are talking about one in five adults with a diagnosable mental health condition and about one in 17 children with a serious emotional disturbance," he said.

Before 2015, state leaders funded mental health programs through the overall budget. Hansch said that often meant funding lagged behind statewide needs, resulting in many Texans with mental illness ending up untreated in prisons and emergency rooms.

Another law that took effect Sept. 1, HB 10, requires all insruance providers to equally fund mental and physical health. Hansch said it reaffirms federal law, but the state law goes even further.

"This now empowers the State of Texas and several different state agencies to be doing proactive enforcement," he said.

The law also created an ombudsman at the Department of Insurance to receive complaints from consumers and hold insurance providers accountable.