{"id":1357814,"date":"2022-03-04T00:09:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T05:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1357814"},"modified":"2022-03-04T00:09:21","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T05:09:21","slug":"gavin-newsom-unveils-plan-to-address-mental-health-in-homeless-population-meet-people-where-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gavin-newsom-unveils-plan-to-address-mental-health-in-homeless-population-meet-people-where-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Newsom Unveils Plan to Address Mental Health in Homeless Population: \u2018Meet People Where They Are\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgavin-newsom-unveils-plan-to-address-mental-health-in-homeless-population-meet-people-where-they-are%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1357814&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/gavin-newsom-homeless-ap-getty-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">As the homeless epidemic in California continues, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday unveiled a plan for \u201cacting with compassion\u201d to help get mental health treatment for the exploding number of people living on the streets.<\/p>\n<p>The plan, dubbed CARE Court \u2014 Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment \u2014 is a policy framework that would have to be approved by the state legislature.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cCARE Court is about meeting people where they are and acting with compassion to support the thousands of Californians living on our streets with severe mental health and substance use disorders,\u201d Newsom said in the press release announcing the plan. \u201cWe are taking action to break the pattern that leaves people without hope and cycling repeatedly through homelessness and incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a new approach to stabilize people with the hardest-to-treat behavioral health conditions,\u201d Newsom said.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement included support from Democrat mayors of two major California cities.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time we face the painful, but obvious truth: our behavioral health system in California is broken,\u201d San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said. \u201cAll of us see it every day on our streets \u2013 and it\u2019s long past time we fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernor Newsom\u2019s groundbreaking CARE Court proposal breaks through on a key missing piece of the homeless challenge,\u201d Democrat Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. \u201cFor people who are the sickest and most vulnerable on our streets, the governments responsible for helping them must be legally obligated to act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The press release <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2022\/03\/03\/governor-newsom-launches-new-plan-to-help-californians-struggling-with-mental-health-challenges-homelessness\/\">detailed<\/a> the framework:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>CARE Court does not wait until someone is hospitalized or arrested before providing treatment. CARE Court will provide an opportunity for a range of people, including family members, first responders, intervention teams, and mental health service providers, among others, to refer individuals suffering from a list of specific ailments, many of them unhoused, and get them into community-based services.<\/p>\n<p>CARE Court offers court-ordered individualized interventions and services, stabilization medication, advanced mental health directives, and housing assistance \u2013 all while remaining community-based. Plans can be up to 12-24 months. In addition to their full clinical team, the client-centered approach also includes a public defender and a supporter to help individuals make self-directed care decisions.<\/p>\n<p>The CARE Court framework was created using the evidence that many people can stabilize, begin healing, and exit homelessness in less restrictive, community-based care settings. The plan focuses on people with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, who may also have substance use challenges, and who lack medical decision-making capacity, and advances an upstream diversion from more restrictive conservatorships or incarceration.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The phenomenon of mentally ill people living on the streets in U.S. cities<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/11209729\/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here\"> dates back<\/a> to President John F. Kennedy\u2019s attempt to create institutions at the state and local level to help those in need of treatment. But the well-intended policy resulted in states dropping the ball and more and more mentally ill people living on the streets or behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/sf\/bayarea\/heatherknight\/article\/Gavin-Newsom-Care-Court-mental-health-16973070.php?sid=5d54065e91d15c7b08162233&#038;utm_source=newsletter&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_content=headlines&#038;utm_campaign=sfc_morningfix\">reported<\/a> on Newsom\u2019s plan:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Under [Newom\u2019s] vision, people suffering from psychosis \u2014 whether from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or triggered by severe drug addiction \u2014 could be brought before a Superior Court judge under three scenarios: Either they are suspected of a crime, an involuntary hold in a psychiatric emergency room is ending, or a family member or outreach worker believes they cannot care for themselves. A public defender would represent them.<\/p>\n<p>A county clinical team would create a care plan with input from the person and their \u201csupporter,\u201d a county case manager who would help them navigate the process and make decisions. The plan would likely include clinical services such as visits with a psychiatrist, prescriptions for medications and housing such as at a board-and-care facility. The person wouldn\u2019t need to be homeless to qualify. If a judge ordered the plan, the county would be mandated to provide what\u2019s needed and the person would be required to accept it.<\/p>\n<p>If the person suffering from psychosis refused at any point to participate, their criminal case would proceed. If no crime was committed, they could face the existing state process, in which people who are gravely disabled or deemed to be a danger to themselves or others are placed under involuntary holds and eventual conservatorship. Medication could be court-ordered, but would not be forcibly given. Failure to take mandated medications could mean the person reverts to the criminal court or eventual conservatorship. The idea is to help people long before either of those outcomes is necessary.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Even with Newsom\u2019s proposed policy, mental health treatment in the state to date is still based on the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967 \u201cin a bid to empower people experiencing mental illness. It allows for short, involuntary psychiatric holds if a person is deemed potentially dangerous, and allows a judge to appoint a longer-term conservator to make decisions for people who are \u2018gravely disabled,\u2019 according to the <em>Chronicle<\/em> report.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Penny Starr on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PennyStarrDC\">Twitter<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the homeless epidemic in California continues, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday unveiled a plan for \u201cacting with compassion\u201d to help get mental health treatment for the exploding number<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1357814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}