California’s new CARE Court program launched in Orange County two months ago. But no one has begun receiving services, according to O.C. Health Care Agency head Veronica Kelley.
The initiative allows judges to order people with psychotic disorders into mental health treatment. It was widely billed as a way to get unhoused people with severe mental illnesses off the streets, since judges can order housing as part of a participant’s treatment plan – but the state funds earmarked for the program won’t adequately cover housing and services for everyone referred.
During Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Doug Chaffee said he still has questions about where the infrastructure and resources for CARE Court will come from.
“How are the facilities going to be built? Who’s going to build them?” he asked. “We’re talking about Medi-Cal maybe paying for the services, but where are the facilities? They don’t exist.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed these concerns a week before CARE Court launched, blaming funding problems on county leaders’ “unwillingness to be accountable.”
Supervisor Don Wagner lambasted state officials for dropping the ball on the program’s logistics.
“I find myself utterly unsurprised that Sacramento has mucked something up again,” he said. “Good ideas go to die up there, bad ideas kind of get thrown against the wall to see what sticks.”
CARE Court launched in L.A. County on Dec. 1. Supervisor Janice Hahn said the costs will be picked up by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
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