No good deed goes unpunished

Apropos of Mayor Karen Goh’s May 10 Community Voices column regarding the CARE Court and our problem with the homeless including the mentally ill homeless, we need to understand that we are dealing with five distinct groups: the non-mentally ill voluntarily homeless, the non-mentally ill involuntarily homeless, the mentally ill homeless, the drug addicted homeless, the dangerous mentally ill homeless. The CARE Court deals with only one of them: the mentally ill homeless. Laura’s Law (Assisted Outpatient Treatment) deals with the dangerous mentally ill homeless. For that reason, the CARE Court is not the best answer to our problem. Why? Let’s consider each group:

1. The nonmentally ill voluntarily homeless have been with us forever under various pejorative names. They drift around camping where they can until they are run out by law enforcement or briefly find shelter and a bed in a shelter facility for three hots and a cot, a fresh set of clothes, a shower and shave, and they’re gone. This group does not qualify for CARE Courts.

2. The nonmentally ill involuntarily homeless are those who have tragically fallen on hard times and lost their homes. They find shelter where they can, often in a homeless shelter where they seek and receive services getting back on their feet and into a new home. Bravo to Bakersfield for and Kern County for creating shelter and service centers for this group. They are not a street problem per se and do not qualify for services in CARE Courts.

3. The mentally ill homeless who appeared (and continue to appear) as a result of the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act 50 years ago, the upshot of which was the unlocking of mental hospitals, the stampede of patients out the doors, the tossing of psych meds that often have lifelong Parkinsonian side-effects — and were only marginally effective longterm anyway, the return of serious psychosis, the setting up of tents and encampments where feasible until such homeless were run out of town by various means only to return or settle elsewhere. This group is untouched by the CARE Court. Why? They have a knack for disappearing and reappearing elsewhere.

4. The drug addicted homeless who — except for their addiction — are not mentally ill and thus do not qualify for CARE Court services.

5. The mentally ill homeless who are “schizophrenic or psychotic.” These mentally ill homeless are eligible for CARE Court but cannot be treated under it until their case is fully adjudicated. Good luck. I was involved in one way or another with similar WIC 5150 mechanisms all my career — in court and out — and can attest to the practical impossibility of completing the adjudication process on a moving and slippery target population.

This group is miniscule in size mainly because there is typically no credible med/psych record that will bring and keep them under the ambit of the CARE Court. Moreover, mental illness is a fluctuating thing. The mentally ill can and do act superficially fairly normally until they exhibit symptoms during florid interludes. They play the system and can pull themselves together and pass as normal long enough to escape the bonds of any forced program. Therefore, its impact would have only a miniscule effect on the homelessness problems we are trying to solve.

So where does that leave us? Hopelessly stuck until we can shake off the tight strictures of the CARE Court, Laura’s Law, and LPS. Well-meaning as it was, LPS left us with one doozy of a hangover that neither Laura’s Law nor the CARE Court cannot even hope to cure.

Gives meaning to the aphorism “No good deed (LPS) goes unpunished.”

Side note: Last year, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, only 218 mentally ill individuals were successfully treated statewide under the provisions of the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program (Laura’s Law) which probably makes it the most expensive, inefficient, and ineffective treatment program per patient ever launched.