{"id":112977,"date":"2025-12-30T01:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T01:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/112977\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T01:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T01:15:07","slug":"california-expands-gavin-newsoms-failing-care-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/112977\/","title":{"rendered":"California expands Gavin Newsom’s failing CARE Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

A California law taking effect in January will expand Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s costly mental health court that\u2019s been described as a failure by people involved with the program.<\/p>\n

The so-called CARE court program, meant to link mentally ill and homeless people with treatment, has helped far fewer people than Newsom initially promised and hasn\u2019t made a dent in street conditions since it was launched in 2023, according to a CalMatters investigation. <\/p>\n

Launched in 2023, the CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment) court program allows family members, first responders and medical professionals to petition a judge to place a mentally ill person into treatment in lieu of a criminal case. <\/p>\n

Gavin Newsom hyped CARE court as a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d in fixing California street conditions. AP<\/p>\n

Newsom hyped CARE court as a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d<\/a> in fixing street conditions as cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco struggled with high numbers of mentally ill or drug-addicted homeless people. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no compassion with people with their clothes off defecating and urinating in the middle of the streets, screaming and talking to themselves,\u201d Newsom told the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>\u00a0in 2022. \u201cI\u2019m increasingly outraged by what\u2019s going on in the streets. I\u2019m disgusted with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after roughly $328 million spent on CARE court<\/a> since 2023, it\u2019s resulted in just 684 \u201ctreatment agreements\u201d \u2014 voluntary promises to seek care that are not enforceable \u2014 and just 22 court-ordered plans as of October, according to CalMatters. <\/p>\n

\u201cI look at it as a total failure,\u201d Anita Fisher, a former CARE court advocate whose son suffers from serious mental illness, told CalMatters.<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n

CARE court was inspired by high numbers of mentally ill homeless people in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ringo Chiu for NY Post<\/p>\n

Starting next year, California is expanding the range of mental health conditions<\/a> that qualify for CARE court, among other changes, in the hopes of reaching more people. <\/p>\n

The CARE court system costs more than $700,000 per participant, according to one estimate. Ringo Chiu for NY Post<\/p>\n

The state initially estimated that between 7,000 and 12,000 people statewide would quality for CARE court, but as of October, California courts had received 3,092 petitions and the majority were tossed out in counties like San Francisco and Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

A combination of toothless policies \u2014 favoring voluntary treatment promises instead of punitive measures \u2014 and a lack of resources have resulted in CARE court helping very few people despite staggering costs, critics say. <\/p>\n

The Assembly Judiciary Committee described CARE court as a \u201cvery expensive\u201d endeavor, estimating it cost $713,000 per participant last year. <\/p>\n

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Many CARE court participants slipped through the cracks, leaving the families of indigent mentally ill people disillusioned, according to CalMatters.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Newsom\u2019s office defended CARE court and pinned the blame on counties for failing to deliver on its promises. <\/p>\n

\u201cCoercion rarely works with those who need\u00a0care: Oftentimes these participants have been in and out of the criminal justice system and threatened with jail if they didn\u2019t seek or succeed in treatment, which has not provided them with the stability they need,\u201d said Newsom\u2019s spokesperson in a statement.<\/p>\n

Newsom\u2019s office noted differences by counting, pointing to \u201camazing results\u201d in areas like Humboldt and San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public has called for action and counties should be listening and acting with urgency \u2014 or voters will do it for them,\u201d the spokesperson continued. \u201cThere\u2019s no excuse for counties failing to deliver \u2014 and the variability in implementation that we are seeing now is completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A California law taking effect in January will expand Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s costly mental health court that\u2019s been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,60674,60675,457,1493,16785,13,3586],"class_list":["post-112977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-criminal-justice-reforms","tag-criminal-justice-system","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-homelessness","tag-mental-illness","tag-politics","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112977","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=112977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}