California Assembly committee advances CARE Court bill

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(The Center Square) – Patients with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses could be referred to CARE Court at the behest of first responders under a California Senate bill.

Senate Bill 989, which was introduced by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, would allow first responders to contact a county behavioral health department to request that the department petition to have the patient seen in CARE Court.

The bill was approved by the Assembly Health Committee Tuesday afternoon after testimonies supporting and opposing the bill.

CARE stands for "Community, Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment." The CARE Court program was established to help severely mentally ill people. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who championed the program, signed the bill that established California’s CARE Court into law in 2022.

The program sought to provide care to those who are often only limited to receiving help at emergency rooms, jail and run-ins with the police, Blakespear testified before the committee.

“We know first responders are often the first point of contact for individuals in crisis,” Blakespear told the committee. “But under current law, they must navigate a complex court filing process. They must obtain sensitive medical records, and they must appear in court to initiate a CARE Court petition. First responders obviously have barriers doing all parts of that.”

Because of these hurdles, many mentally ill Californians who could benefit from CARE Court are never referred to the help they could receive in the CARE Court program, Blakespear testified.

The senator said her bill addresses that by involving first responders.

“This approach reduces administrative burdens, better align responsibilities with expertise and ensures that individuals who are in crisis are connected to care and not lost in the system,” Blakespear testified.

Advocates of the bill said they support the ways that first responders could more easily involve county health officials in determining if someone is a good fit for CARE Court treatment.

“I hear again and again that [firefighters] are often running 911 calls on the same individual in the community, transporting them to the hospital, understanding that they may not get the deeper level of care that they may need,” Meagan Subers, governmental advocate for California Professional Firefighters, testified in support of the bill. “We see CARE as another tool for firefighters and other first responders to try to help make these connections to that deeper level of care.”

According to a legislative analysis of the bill, the county health department has 30 days to decide whether a patient qualifies for CARE Court and notify the first responder about the decision.

CARE Court is a voluntary program that connects mentally ill people with housing, medical care, therapy and other means of support. It aims to divert those with psychotic disorders away from more restrictive legal processes, like conservatorships.

Plans that include any of these ways of supporting a mentally ill person are ordered by the court, but still can’t compel them to seek or stick with their court-ordered care plan – frustrating many families of mentally ill people who have gone through CARE Court already, according to news reports.

The California Legislature allocated $39.5 million to the Judicial Council of California in the CARE Court program’s first year, with allocations totaling $37.7 million in subsequent years to pay for the program, according to a legislative analysis of the 2022 bill that established CARE Court.

Opponents of Senate Bill 989 said the expensive taxpayer-funded program was not the solution to connecting mentally ill individuals with the medical, behavioral and housing resources they need.

“Funneling individuals into CARE Court is not the solution," Evan Fern, public policy advocate for Disability Rights California, testified. “CARE Court is an unproven, costly and coercive program. We continue to expand CARE Court without fully understanding if it’s actually working.”

Lawmakers acknowledged how California’s CARE Court has fallen short of the proposed aims of the program that was meant to keep mentally ill people out of the criminal justice system and homelessness.

“We are still in a state of fully understanding the impacts and implementation challenges with the CARE Act,” Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Oakland and chair of the Assembly Health Committee, remarked during the meeting. “So we are going to look forward to making sure we are doing that more thoroughly next year.”