In the Name of ‘Modernization,’ Newsom Admin. Wants to Disappear Unhoused and Disabled People From the Streets

1
532

From Disability Visibility Project: “On October 1, over the vehement objections of disabled activists, housing justice activists, and human rights organizations, the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act went into effect in seven California counties. The law empowers family members, social service providers, police, and first responders to refer primarily unhoused people diagnosed with schizophrenia or other severe mental illnesses to a regime of civil courts that would compel them to accept a ‘care plan’ handed down by a judge. In theory, people are allowed to refuse the care plan, but non-compliance could potentially initiate institutionalization or even conservatorship proceedings.

. . . The CARE Act is predicated on a big lie perpetrated by policymakers and marketed to the public: that houselessness is caused by ‘severe and untreated’ mental illness and substance use. In a recent large-scale survey of unhoused Californians conducted by the University of California San Francisco, respondents reported high rents as the primary reason they became unhoused. They said that rent subsidies or one-time cash assistance would have kept them in their homes.

Despite its bluster as a houselessness fix, CARE Court doesn’t guarantee housing. ‘The promise of CARE Court is that you’ll get a housing plan,’ mental health activist Keris Jän Myrick told Disability Visibility Project. ‘I’ve asked, “How do people live in a plan? A plan is a piece of paper. I can’t live under a piece of paper.”’

Disability Rights California and allied civil rights groups fought to halt the law earlier this year, but their challenge was struck down by California’s Supreme Court. Los Angeles County will roll out CARE Court on December 1, and it will be required in all California counties by December 2024.

CARE Court is just the first in a series of measures backed by Governor Newsom that use the rhetoric of ‘modernization’ to chip away at hard-won rights emerging from deinstitutionalization in the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to 1967, psychiatrically, intellectually, and developmentally disabled Californians lacked legal protections against involuntary confinement in institutions. That changed with the passage of the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, designed to ‘end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorders.’ LPS also established some of the first due process rights for people facing involuntary psychiatric commitments.

Under LPS, people could not be forcibly institutionalized or placed under a conservatorship unless they were found to be a ‘danger to themselves or others,’ or ‘gravely disabled—’ defined as unable to provide for food, clothing, or shelter as a result of psychiatric disability. As flawed as the LPS protections are, they are some of the only safeguards on bodily autonomy that mad, mentally ill, and disabled Californians have had access to, and they are currently under attack.”

Article →

***

Back to Around the Web

1 COMMENT

  1. The post refered in this post seems very relevant, it’s analysis might complement what Rob Wipond wrote about, for a starting point:

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/08/busting-deinstitutionalization-myth/

    Someone “should” detail properly the whole thing. Just not me here.

    It introduces hearsay as expert testimony. I imagine the psychopatic practitioner that just codifies a severe MI label in some kids records, just for decades latter to be used against them.

    And for those who didn’t cared, like people with things not considered like disability now, they will come for you later to get you forcibly on GLP-1 analogs if you don’t slim down!. Jk, unless you are unhoused and don’t bother your neighbors or family AND are a good consumer (be a part of the cogs of profit), will be safe, for now, muahahaha….

    And I can see how this is going to end:

    They’ll inject a 6months-1yr-5yr depot neuroleptic on an unhoused individual after brief hospitalization. Then 2-4 weeks latter a constant fraction of those individuals will die on the street because a heart arrhytmia. Say around 3-5% of them. Maybe more.

    Of those that survive, they will die from insensitivity to the elements and thirst: cold, heat and lack of drinking clean water.

    I’ve seen a suggestive case:

    Some suits, probably lawyers, a psychiatrist and a psychiatric nurse, harassing a homeless male, who was severely drowsy most of the time. Funny that time he looked more alert, barely.

    Afters, I saw him, in the sun, without enough water around, exposed to it, collapsed, in the middle of the spring-summer period. Barely clothed.

    Since he wasn’t taken in, mostly likely he got “offered” depot neuroleptics or jail, so, when that started kicking in, he was even less likely to defend himself against the elements and thirst, in the short term, still unhoused.

    And with extreme hunger caused by neuroleptics.

    Without a job, without a family, without a comunity, without love, without law and without care.

    Mere spite and hate even when the law forbade in Mexico coercive treatments. Ha!, deadly dead letter of the law.

    I haven’t seen the folk since months ago. I hope not another “natural causes” death in a homeless compatriot. Another fellow human.

    So he wasn’t severely sleepy exposed to the elements because of alcoholism, but because of neuroleptization of the depot kind. I imagine. How could he buy booze when he could barely “get” a 400ml bootle of water?!. The typical “they’re very smart to get the vice!”, another piece of crappy rhetoric…

    After all, neuroleptized indivualds can’t die in the hospital/safe housing because an arrhytmia!. Let alone suicide or violence!. That’s bad for bussiness just on the statistics!. It will stand as a swollen thumb!.

    See for enlightment, particularly the comments, because there are omissions by “caring” professionals:

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/09/what-the-radar-trial-tells-us-about-antipsychotic-reduction-and-discontinuation/

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/10/reflections-radar-study/

    Better for bussiness if they die on the street when they can claim died of lack of treatment and care: “See!, this is what WE are talking about! they need CARE! Act, now!”.

    When it was the long term, more than 6 months, depot neuroleptic. And lack of real care, both: I do care, and I am going to take care.

    Even “natural causes” as reported in the death certificate can spike the number enough for state epidemiologists, if allowed, to “raise concerns”. Another euphemism.

    Way too long depot neuroleptics, which are also new, expensive, and under patent…

    Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY