A pair of bills that seek to make it easier to get help for seriously mentally ill people cleared their first committee hearing in Sacramento on Tuesday despite opposition from some advocacy and professional groups.<\/p>\n
Judiciary Committee members unanimously approved advancing Senate Bills 1016 and 989, legislation proposed by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, to appropriations after hearing from a dozen family members who said they support making changes that would make it easier for first responders to request mental health evaluations when the subjects of some petitions refuse to participate.<\/p>\n
After hearing testimony, including opposing comments from the advocacy group Disability Rights California, committee chair Tom Umberg\u00a0said\u00a0he believes the proposed legislation could help reach Californians with severe mental illness who have so far fallen through the cracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is we\u2019re trying to provide a structure so that we can have these folks who have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychotic features, who sadly many people think that they can never become productive members of society, and that\u2019s not true,\u201d Umberg said.<\/p>\n
Umberg is co-author of the 2022 bill that created the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act. The legislation, which took effect in San Diego County in October 2023, and gradually throughout California, allows\u00a0loved ones, first responders and other professionals to file petitions on behalf of residents with severe and untreated mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, who are considered unlikely to survive in the community if they do not receive treatment.<\/p>\n
But progress has been slow.<\/p>\n
A recent California Judicial Council report<\/a> states that while there have been 3,092 CARE petitions filed, generating nearly 7,400 hearings statewide, the process yielded just 684 voluntary agreements and 22 court-ordered care plans through November 2025. San Diego has been among the state\u2019s most-active participants, reporting 516 local petitions through Feb. 23, with 182 agreements signed and 32 people having graduated from the program.<\/p>\n However, 297 petitions have been rejected. Ninety-eight of those rejections were because the subject of a petition was considered ineligible, likely due to their type of mental illness, but 79, 27% of total petitions, have been due to a subject \u201crefusing services.\u201d<\/p>\n It is this group that Blakespear\u2019s bill highlights.<\/p>\n A growing number of community members are expressing their frustration that the CARE Act has been unable to reach some individuals, especially those said to suffer from anosognosia, the medical term used to describe situations where a person is unable to recognize their own physical or mental health impairments.<\/p>\n