San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Photo by Kelly Davis
In my story last month on Laura's Law—California legislation that allows someone who's seriously mentally ill to be court-ordered into treatment—I mentioned a report by Orange County's Health Care Agency (HCA) that estimated it would cost between $5.7 million and $6.1 million to treat 120 people annually under the law. Orange County's Board of Supervisors asked the HCA to look into what it might cost to implement the law after the death of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man who got into an altercation with Fullerton police in July. According to a story by voiceofoc.org, Thomas' family had struggled to get him into treatment, but were told they couldn't force him unless he proved to be a danger to himself or others.
As I reported, San Diego County estimates it could treat 540 people for $2.2 million. Though the county's Mental Health Board supports implementing the law, the county's behavioral health staff doesn't.
The disparity in cost estimates between the two counties is just one of the things that's gotten attention of Laura's Law advocates. New York-based think tank Mental Illness Policy Org. put together a lengthy response to the HCA report as did the Orange County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. As the Mental Illness Policy report puts it:
While [the HCA report] does a good job of analyzing some difficulties in implementing Laura’s Law, it failed to inform the supervisors about the advantages, overstated disadvantages, inflated costs, failed to offset the costs with savings, relied on outdated research, and misled the supervisors about the multiple funding streams already available.
While OC's Board of Supervisors still hasn't docketed a discussion of the law, as the Orange County Register reported yesterday, the county's Ending Homelessness 2020 commission will discuss Laura's Law at its meeting next week.
Laura's Law is a wedge issue in the mental health community—folks are either strongly for it or strongly against it. The law's advocates argue that it's the only way to get help for seriously mentally ill folks who've otherwise refused treatment. The law's opponents, though, say that forcing someone into treatment could undermine recovery and goes against hard-fought protections against forced treatment.
