California’s controversial CARE Court program began its rollout Monday in seven counties, including Orange and Riverside.
The program allows people with psychotic disorders to be brought before a judge and ordered into treatment. For people who are unhoused, the court-ordered plan can include housing.
Officials have touted CARE Court as a way to address the homelessness crisis. About a quarter of the 170,000 unhoused people in California have a serious mental illness. But Dr. Veronica Kelley, head of Orange County’s Mental Health and Recovery Services, told KNX News the housing component may have been oversold.
“This is a tool in an already pretty filled toolbox that will assist us, but if we are looking for something to assist in housing, this is not gonna do that,” she said.
Kelley said the program is more geared toward people who are already housed or in contact with loved ones. She said the focus is on helping those with the most severe mental illnesses who “might need care, but might not be open to receiving that care.”
While the treatment ordered in CARE Court is technically voluntary, people who refuse to comply can be hospitalized against their will or referred to a conservatorship. Critics, including the ACLU, say that forcing or coercing people into treatment will harm their long-term recovery and violate their civil rights.
Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed those concerns in an interview last month, saying, “We have people that end up in a conservatorship all the time. I get why people don’t want to see more of those, but we have that system already.”
O.C.’s CARE Court program is being overseen by Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh, who was fired from the O.C. District Attorney’s office last year after a federal investigation found that he had systematically violated prisoners’ civil rights. He was also recently accused of a criminal conspiracy to withhold evidence and cover up police misconduct.
Los Angeles County’s CARE Courts will begin in December.
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