Gov. Gavin Newsom Discusses Mental Health Court Plan In Napa Visit
NAPA (KPIX 5) – Gov. Gavin Newsom was back in the Bay Area on Thursday, trying to build support for his plan to reform California's approach to homelessness and mental health.
The governor's latest roundtable was held on the grounds of Napa State Hospital, and the site's history was mentioned more than a few times as the case was made for a new approach.
"Fifty-five years ago, the state of California made a well-intended public policy decision to reduce the population of the state hospitals that house people with severe mental illness," said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
For decades now, California has wrestled with the aftermath of those decisions and while there is debate on how to correct course, there is some broad agreement.
"What we're doing today as we are arresting those folks as they drift in conditions of unsheltered homelessness and untreated psychotic symptoms," said Katherine Warburton with California Department of State Hospitals.
"It's time we face the painful and obvious truth that our behavioral health system in California is broken," said Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Davis).
The governor's plan would create a new system within county courts where treatment or housing could be mandated for some 8,000 to 12,000 of what could be called the state's toughest cases; people who have been placed on psychiatric holds, those who are being repeatedly arrested, or those referred by family members or mental health providers. The treatment, he says, would be part of the larger $14 billion homelessness push.
"Thirty-three specific thousand units," explained Newsom. "33,000 units of housing and Slauson specifically for those struggling with severe mental illness and those that are struggling with substance abuse disorder."
Newsom's plan is widely supported by mayors but opposed by some disability rights groups, and counties that face sanctions if they don't follow the program and meet performance standards.
"There's no greater case for the urgency of this initiative in the case that's made every single hour of every single day in the state of California strength navigate the streets and sidewalk and we see at scale the failure of our current system," Newsom said.