New California law aims to force people with mental illness or addiction to get help
New California law aims to force people with mental illness or addiction to get help
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill that makes it easier for authorities to compel treatment for people with mental illness or addiction issues. The proposal is partly aimed at addressing the state’s growing homelessness crisis.
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The new law, which reforms the state’s conservatorship system, expands the definition of “gravely disabled” to include people who are unable to provide themselves basic needs such as food and shelter due to an untreated mental illness or unhealthy drugs and alcohol use. Local governments say current state laws leave their hands tied if a person refuses to receive help.
The law is designed to make it easier for authorities to provide care to people with untreated mental illness or addictions to alcohol and drugs, many of whom are homeless.
I work in mental health in another state, and I’ve been wishing for a law like this since I started my career. I don’t believe people who have any sort of mental illness should be forced into treatment, but laws enacted at the behest of rights groups for the mentally ill have gone too far (although it’s certainly better that we have those laws than don’t). Some people are so sick they’re their own insurmountable obstacle to care, and that would be fine if their condition only affected them, but it often doesn’t. For their sakes and that of those around them, I agree some people should be forced to get their issues treated.
I have a nosy neighbor that also happens to be a social worker. She made my life hell last year by getting cops involved in a situation that didn't necessitate them, and additionally forced me to go through all sorts of hoops and psychological examinations to prove my state of mind. This law, despite it's good intentions, makes me super nervous after having gone through that BS
This should be everyone's fear, it feels like just anther witch hunt.
It is rational to fear that this authority would be abused, based on the long history of abuses of authority in the USA.
We should react this way anytime any law is passed that gives the govt more authority to restrict our freedom.
But the witches actually exist in this scenario. If you've spent any time living on the west coast over the past decade, you've surely seen these people with uncontrolled mental illness roaming the streets and causing havoc.
What sort of solution would you propose for people so deep into mental illness that they can't or won't get themselves out if it? Demanding that they continue living on the streets isn't a very humane solution either.
roaming the streets and causing havoc
What is havoc to you? I live in San Francisco and the homeless and addicts don't really bother people outside of them existing , which does seem to bother a lot of people. They do shoplift and car break ins are pretty common but it's not like they're running around brandishing knives. Most of them are opiate addicts, and you aren't aggressive or chaotic on heroine.
I agree we need more mental health and addiction treatment but you can't force people into it. If someone is in pain and don't see a reason to live outside of drugs, locking them up won't fix that. Either you keep them there forever or they'll relapse as soon as they get out. We need to address the societal issues causing this instead of the band aid solution of detainment.
I live in San Francisco and the homeless and addicts don’t really bother people outside of them existing
Then you're a goddamn liar because there is no way in hell you live in the city and don't see the damage (literal physical damage) they do.
This is from a year ago, did you have this saved?
It's a city of 10 million people , crazy fucked up shit is bound to happen, homeless people or not. Here in SF a tech CEO stabbed another CEO multiple times and left them in the streets, you don't see us trying to detain CEOs.
I don't see the point in arguing about this. You said they mostly keep to themselves, maybe a little pretty crime here and there (as if even that is okay).. That has NOT been my experience and I brought one especially-egregious receipt to make my point. The other poster who mentioned clapped-out RVs and catalytic converter theft must also be from LA.
We could argue anecdotes and experiences back and forth and get nowhere, or we could look at the data. According to the LAPD 8% of crimes involved homeless people. This includes cases where either the victim or the suspect is homeless. The article also states that they are more likely the victim then the perpetrator so we can cut that down to ~3% are the suspects of crime. Also considering that homeless are often falsely accused or scapegoated that is still probably a high guess for actual perpetrators.
That's ~3% of crime, considering your also in general not likely to be a victim of crime the odds you are a victim of a crime committed by a homeless person is very low. Not 0 so you'll get lurid stories like the one you posted on the local news, but still low.
The tactic of citing the most horrific news story about an individual in a group of people has long been used to demonize people of color. Some news agencies realize they can't do this anymore so they're shifting to a new marginalized group that just so happens to be composed of mostly people of color.
But also the LAPD is much less likely to respond to crimes in poorer areas. So the numbers they report aren't all that meaningful.
I find those numbers misleading since they only account for those people who've been caught and prosecuted. Police almost universally ignore property crimes like theft and vandalism because there is so much of it and because it doesn't bring any benefit to the city/department when your perpetrators can't pay their fines or court costs. With mentally ill people, they're more likely to just shoot them dead rather than bring charges against them or take them to a mental health facility. Somehow this all gets excluded from the studies.
My mother-in-law was disabled for years before she died and required the use of a scooter to travel more than about 50 feet. We have sidewalks here that are completely impassable due to the tents and accumulated junk from our unhoused population. But disabled people can suck it, amirite?
LAPD doesn't do anything about it, and everyone here knows they do everything in their power to avoid so much as filing a report, much less making arrests. Maybe their statistics are technically correct but they are not at all representative of the lawless landscape that is the streets of LA.
You imply I'm a bigot because I'd rather get these people the mental health care they need but are incapable of choosing for themselves. You evidently would rather let these economic free thinkers trash our communities and steal anything not nailed down, in case they want to "opt out of capitalism." Okay, Karl Marx.
You know, I never see anyone talking about doing anything like this when people with homes do drugs or have mental illness. How is every single crime automatically chalked up to "the homeless." There's a million housed and perfectly mentally stable people in California stealing catalytic converters, among other things. But the minute that or retail theft or violent crime comes up, it never fails that it's attributed only to people who can't pay rent.
I might agree with you on the catalytic converters but who do you think is stealing mail out of mailboxes, who's leaving dirty needles in our parks, who's taking over our sidewalls and other public spaces with tents and other junk ? All of us deserve better than this, including them.
If you’ve spent any time living on the west coast over the past decade
The majority of people in this thread have not, and it shows.
It's always "I believe that (subordinate group) should get basic rights, but.... (and then something about being inconvenienced)."
It says at the end of the article that there's already a law that does that for certain diagnoses and at a judge's discretion. I don't see why it would ever need to go farther than that. I've worked in and been in mental health and addiction facilities and they already use mental health diagnoses and medication to subjugate people living through homelessness and the disease of addiction. Conservatorship is not the answer to someone not being able to pay rent. It will be used to diagnose people who are not mentally ill just to keep them from being an "eyesore." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that. You also can't force someone into addiction treatment and expect it to magically work. It's their life, they have to want to quit. We're going to waste so many resources forcing people into addiction treatment and it won't do anything except to make them resentful of the system. Even worse, if you lock someone away who doesn't want to quit and their tolerance for drugs goes down, then they get out and use, they will definitely OD. So many people die or nearly die that way after getting out of jails and prisons for victimless crimes like addiction and homelessness.
The answer is making treatment more available to people. Then giving them a place to live and resources to live on while they find jobs and reintegrate into society. Only having (forced) treatment will accomplish nothing and likely make the problem worse while allowing authoritarianism into California. This law is fucking disgusting, dehumanizing, and scary. We should be ashamed of ourselves as a society that this is how we treat our most vulnerable as a society.
ETA: This is how available addiction and mental health treatment is to Californians with Medi-Cal: it's not. Miles of red tape and bureaucracy that people with no resources or transportation are somehow supposed to navigate, just to have an indefinite wait list at the end of it. Ask me how I know. If treatment were made available to meet people where they are, it would be far more effective, if paired with reentry programs that actually treat them like people.
and then something about being inconvenienced
Holy privilege. Tell me you've never lived in an area with schizophrenic zombies roaming the streets.
The answer is making treatment more available to people.
These people do it have the mental capacity to accept treatment. They literally cannot make a decision about anything.
We're not talking about someone with depression here, we're talking about people whose higher brain functions are not working at all.
You're looking at this through the limited range of your own mental health experience, not realizing how radically different it is for the level of mental psychosis big-city homeless have.
You know the church is going to step in and fuck up the chances of these people ever getting real help, right?
The people with the least won't have the resources to get proper treatment and religious groups will get license to, "have God fix them." Next, religious groups will start seeking ways to expand what is considered mental illness applying their own christian morality. Before you know it the gays will be forced into conversion therapy or some archaic equivalent.
I am reeeeeeally sick of the way every time an article comes out about a California law, someone from Indiana or Mississippi or whatever hellhole comes out of the woodwork to explain how it will be abused because they think all of America is like their own little hellhole.
Lol at the thought that the religious right hasn't a foothold in California.
They're fairly irrelevant
Hubris