The governor is continuing to press for a bill that leads his agenda on homelessness this year, announcing $518.5 million on Monday for people coping with severe mental illnesses and releasing a rare statement yesterday praising the vote to allay “existential crises.”īUENOS DÍAS, good Wednesday morning. It has a couple of Assembly committees to go before an Assembly floor vote and a final Senate OK. ONWARDS: None of that means the bill will fall short of Newsom’s desk. Assembly member Mark Stone voted for the bill but fretted that good intentions would be abused to “sweep people up because we don’t like seeing them.” Disability Rights California’s Kim Pederson distilled it succinctly: “true freedom of choice cannot exist,” she warned, “in a system where there are consequences to not following a court order.” Assembly member Ash Kalra, a progressive Democrat who furnished the only vote against the bill, questioned the “coercive nature” of the bill and argued it undercut a housing-focused approach to solving homelessness. Tom Umberg retorted that “the alternative is you just leave that person living under the bridge” and getting no help. Proponents of the idea insist that it’s not about criminalizing homelessness - part of why amendments took the role of counseling participants from public defenders - and stress that it would offer people already on the road to conservatorship an off ramp, making confinement a last resort rather than a starting place. More broadly, the idea tests the tension between liberty and welfare. Critics warn California lacks the housing to shelter people going through the program. People of color fear perpetuating medical discrimination. County health officials decry diverting resources from their more-effective pursuit of voluntary treatment into mandates that could bring penalties for noncompliance. It also prompted concerns from lawmakers - even if they ultimately voted in favor - during an hours-long hearing. That flies red flags for civil libertarians, advocates for the disabled and the local health professionals who would need to implement the program. If they reject it, people would head down a path that would start with having a treatment plan imposed on them and potentially end, if they continue to resist, with involuntary confinement and medication. They could voluntarily submit to a combination of behavioral therapy, medication and housing (if available). The plan would let relatives, first responders, health care professionals and prosecutors channel people suffering from severe mental illness into civil proceedings. “We know, see, feel, interact with so many Californians who are very sick, very vulnerable, often living unhoused on the streets, and our answer is to walk by them” and let criminal charges or forced hospitalization fill the void, Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly testified yesterday. Spurring the bill was the broad consensus that California can no longer abide the number of people languishing outdoors in states of clear psychological distress. Legislation enacting Newsom’s vision cleared its first Assembly committee yesterday with a single lawmaker dissenting - the only “no” vote on file in the bill’s journey so far. Gavin Newsom’s plan to prod mentally ill homeless people into treatment is proceeding smoothly to the governor’s desk - but the vote totals belie some underlying tension.
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