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The San Francisco Chronicle

May 31, 2001

Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2001 The San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Editorial: STATE OF NEGLECT; Money well spent

THE INADEQUACY of California's systems for identifying and treating the severely mentally ill is well documented. It is obvious to anyone who has looked at the streets or beneath the underpasses of a major city, especially San Francisco, and witnessed the effects of a policy of neglect.

The issue hits home for many families who cannot help a loved one because they lack the resources -- or in some cases, the legal standing -- to intervene.

California never came close to fulfilling a 30-year-old commitment to provide a range of community-based services as a condition of its decision to liberate patients from mental hospitals. It merely exchanged one form of neglect for another.

Help may be on the way in the form of two groundbreaking bills by Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis. Her AB1421 would expand the laws against involuntary treatment to allow it in more cases in which someone with a severe mental illness refuses help. It has become known as "Laura's Law," in memory of 19-year-old Laura Wilcox, who was shot to death at a Nevada County mental health clinic, allegedly by a troubled patient. While such acts of violence draw attention to issues of mental illness, the far more common toll of inattention is a silent one, of people suffering without realizing their illness.

Thomson also has proposed AB1422, a wide-ranging package to identify and address the most cost-effective preventive treatments for the severely mentally ill.

We strongly support Thomson's measures, each of which is pending in the Legislature.

However, the much-needed focus on new laws and new programs does not diminish the need to stay the course on pilot programs that have proved successful in helping homeless people.

Two years ago, Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, pushed through legislation to set up a $10 million pilot program in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Stanislaus counties to provide comprehensive treatment to the mentally ill who are homeless. The key to the program is outreach.

The results were impressive. Patients who were brought into those treatment programs became far more likely to be employed and far less likely to be hospitalized or incarcerated. The Legislature expanded the program to $55.6 million in 32 counties this year. The outlay remains far too modest in view of the program's success. San Francisco's share, for example, covers the cost of 120 homeless people.

Steinberg proposed a doubling of the program in fiscal 2001, and the Assembly has come close, with an extra $40 million in its budget. Regrettably, though, neither the Senate nor Gov. Gray Davis has proposed any increase for 2001.

California does not save money by waiting for the homeless mentally ill to arrive at hospitals and jails. The Steinberg bill has shown that a touch of compassion and treatment can turn lives around.

It is money well spent.

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