From [INDYBAY] Oakland - Welcome to the Twilight Zone? Breaking bad on policy he advanced earlier this year, California Governor Gavin (Gruesom) Newsom signed a bill Wednesday to create extremist courts attacking the unhoused to address mental health and homelessness issues with SB 1388 dubbed the Care Court, by forcing unhoused people accused of having schizophrenia or other illnesses to submit to so-called medical treatment.

Reportedly, Oakland’s homeless population grew by around 1,000 people since the plandemic began, placing around 5,055 people without permanent housing.

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on proven methods that prioritize permanent housing and voluntary healthcare, Governor Gavin Newsom’s so-called “CARE Court” plan would create a new court system that subjects unhoused people with mental health disabilities to involuntary treatment. This is not the answer. California desperately needs more housing and healthcare — not more courts.”

Human Rights Watch Also Opposes The So-Called Care Court:

In a release from Human Rights Watch, it part it states, “Human Rights Watch has carefully reviewed SB 1338 and the proposed framework for the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court created by CalHHS, and must respectfully voice our strong opposition. CARE Court promotes a system of involuntary, coerced treatment, enforced by an expanded judicial infrastructure, that will, in practice, simply remove unhoused people with perceived mental health conditions from the public eye without effectively addressing those mental health conditions and without meeting the urgent need for housing. We urge you to reject this bill and instead to take a more holistic, rights-respecting approach to address the lack of resources for autonomy-affirming treatment options and affordable housing.

Additionally, “The CARE Court directly targets unhoused people to be placed under court-ordered treatment, thus denying their rights and self-determination. Governor Newsom, in pitching this plan, called it a response to seeing homeless encampments throughout the state of California. CARE Court will empower police and homeless outreach workers to refer people to the courts and allow judges to order them into treatment against their will, including medication plans. Despite allusions to “housing plans,” CARE Court does not increase access to permanent supportive housing and indeed, the bill prohibits the court from requiring the county to provide actual housing.”

What Kind Of Treatment Will The Coerced Unhoused People Be Facing?

What kind of treatment will the coerced unhoused population be facing? That appears uncertain at the moment, but reportedly, “Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for depression and other psychiatric conditions. There is little comprehensive data on how many patients receive ECT in the United States, nor about the demographics of ECT recipients. This study characterizes the demographics of those receiving ECT, and how these demographics may have changed with time.”