Mayor Todd Gloria cheered Gov. Gavin Newsom’s early Tuesday signing of legislation that will make more Californians eligible for forced behavioral health treatment.
Senate Bill 43 expands the definition of grave disability and allows mandated care for people with severe substance use disorders.
The latter change is expected to have the most significant impact.
Luke Bergmann, the county’s behavioral health services director, told Voice of San Diego he doesn’t expect a dramatic wave of long-term substance use disorder-related conservatorships under SB 43. Bergmann said he does expect more temporary holds instigated by law enforcement, which would mean more people struggling with addiction end up in emergency rooms. Bergmann sees those holds for evaluation which can last up to 72 hours to present opportunities to connect those people with care – if the system can deliver it.
Reminder: San Diego County is for now often unable to deliver residential substance use treatment on demand. It also doesn’t have locked long-term residential options for people whose primary challenge is addiction. SB 43 could also put more pressure on the county to ensure access to long-term care options for people under conservatorship. As our Lisa Halverstadt has previously reported, the county’s behavioral health system was already overloaded before the state’s new CARE Court mandate – another new state law aiming to compel more people into treatment – took effect early this month.
Gloria’s take: “SB 43 will help us reach a small, but very visible, segment of our homeless population who up until now have been allowed to languish on the streets, often dying alone and forgotten by society,” Gloria wrote in a statement. “SB 43 will save lives.”
Gloria has lobbied to lower the bar for conservatorships since his 2022 State of the City Address and late last month hosted a press conference outside City Hall to urge Newsom to sign SB 43.
Meanwhile: A coalition of statewide advocacy groups have argued SB 43 is “poor public policy” that won’t deliver more community-based treatment they consider more effective.
This is a step in the right direction. Better to put them in jails and have the drug treatment in the jails but this is better than nothing. The bias from the authors here is so obvious that it’s uncomfortable.