{"id":111779,"date":"2025-12-29T00:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T00:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/111779\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T00:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T00:21:09","slug":"new-california-law-expands-care-court-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/111779\/","title":{"rendered":"New California law expands CARE court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses the media after signing legislation in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. (File photo by Alisha Jucevic\/For CalMatters)<\/p>\n

In 2023, Gov.\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/a>\u00a0launched a new program intended to revolutionize the way counties provide mental health care to some of their most vulnerable residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CARE Court\u00a0<\/a>provides a new pathway for the courts to coordinate mental health and substance use treatment, medications and housing placements for people in the grip of psychosis, including those sleeping outside on the street. <\/p>\n

But CalMatters investigations have found that so far, the program is falling short<\/a> of expectations. It\u2019s helping\u00a0far fewer people<\/a>\u00a0than projected, it\u2019s\u00a0struggled to help<\/a>\u00a0homeless participants, and some families have had their\u00a0hopes dashed<\/a>\u00a0when CARE Court failed to help their loved ones who can\u2019t consent to treatment.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 27<\/a>, by Democrat\u00a0Tom Umberg<\/a>\u00a0of Santa Ana, seeks to address some of those concerns. The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1,\u00a0expands who is eligible<\/a>\u00a0for CARE Court. Under the original law, only people diagnosed with schizophrenia and other limited psychotic disorders qualified for the program. Now, people who experience psychosis as a result of bipolar disorder can enter the program as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Umberg has said the law could help CARE Court services reach more people, but he doesn\u2019t expect it to dramatically increase the program\u2019s numbers. Counties seem unsure how much of a difference the change will make. San Diego, for example, estimated it could expand its CARE Court program by anywhere between 3.5% and 48.1%.<\/p>\n

The law also attempts to make it easier for people to enter CARE Court by smoothing some of the logistical hurdles: It combines two early court hearings into one to reduce the amount of time participants have to spend in court and save administrative resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This law also allows the criminal justice system to refer someone directly into CARE Court if they are charged with a crime and are deemed incompetent to stand trial.<\/p>\n

As of the end of October, California courts had received 3,092 CARE Court petitions, approved 684 treatment agreements and ordered 22 CARE plans, according to the Judicial Council of California. Newsom\u2019s administration initially estimated between 7,000 and 12,000 Californians would qualify for CARE Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses the media after signing legislation in Los Angeles on Sept. 28, 2023. (File photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[38789,457,60040,74,76,75,60041],"class_list":["post-111779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-care-court","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-mental-health-care","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-substance-abuse-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}