Both criticisms have a point: The CARE Court bill may wrap itself in the language of help and empathy, but at its core it is a way of forcing people who have not committed a crime, nor have they proved that they is not an imminent threat. to the public, to be forced into a court proceedings that would place many of them on powerful medication under the threat of a conservatism that would take away many of their freedoms. When people enter the system, they get legal aid (earlier draft bill provided a public protector). You do not grant legal aid to people because they are about to enter a fully voluntary system. You grant them legal aid because they are about to enter some form of court system. Considering that the standard of enrollment in the CARE court is the display of symptoms of what Umberg called “schizophrenia-like” conditions, the subjectivity of those assessments and the potential for abuse are certainly there.
If California can not handle the current number of mentally ill homeless people, what will it do when the 7,000 to 12,000 more that Umberg predicted hit the system? Umberg, in turn, acknowledges that finding those workers, whether psychiatrists or social workers, will be one of the biggest challenges facing the CARE court system. He says the governor is investing in training new workers, but given the current shortage of civilian workers, especially when it comes to homeless services, it is hard to imagine there will be anything close to enough trained professionals to fill the role . The state’s constant mystery is that everyone wants to do something to the homeless as long as the person doing that job is someone else.
The other major challenge Umberg noticed was around the CARE Court’s housing plan for people entering the system. Much of the criticism of the bill, especially from the ACLU, comes from the fact that there is no real guarantee that a CARE Court graduate will receive any form of housing. It is certainly enigmatic given that part of the state’s justification for setting up CARE courts rightly notes that the stress of life on the streets contributes to mental illness and makes it more difficult for people to seek or maintain treatment. If the state can not guarantee a homeless, mentally ill person a place to stay, how can it really force that person to seek regular treatment or go to a counselor and the court, especially when the state agrees that homelessness itself ‘ is a major issue. manager of the symptoms of mental illness?
This is the question CARE Courts asked the Californians: How much are you willing to play fast and loose with the civil liberties of chronically homeless, mental illness? It is true that homelessness is the state’s most urgent problem and that most residents, including me, are upset daily about the apparent insolubility of the problem.
The billions of dollars the state spends per year on homelessness solutions include significant investments in housing. But while housing-first-policies can provide relief for many people who are on the verge of losing their homes or falling into and out of homelessness, it is not a panacea that will keep chronically unmarried, mentally ill off the streets. (To be honest, no serious housing first advocate will ever say that their approach will be able to solve every problem.) That’s why the political mood in the state has swung so fast to a type of desperation that says something – anything – must be done.
Such bluffs and silly promises have actually made it almost impossible to say which proposals should be taken seriously and which should not, which are merely the reflective ideas of politicians who are under pressure and which one is trying to solve a problem. Or if there is even really a difference between the two.