Bob Britton doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to curse the American Civil Liberties Union, but there he was outside the state capitol this week, offering four-letter words for the civil rights organization.
The ACLU is a leading opponent of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to establish civil courts to help treat people with serious mental illness. The group said it would lead to “coercive treatment” of homeless people, giving police and others too much leeway to trample on the autonomy of those who refuse help.
But as the uncle of someone with a serious mental illness — schizophrenia — Britton says people like his nephew sometimes don’t realize they need help, and that ignoring medical reality isn’t protecting their civil rights. In fact, it deprives families like his of the ability to care for their loved ones.
“So — the ACLU,” Britton said seconds after meeting me, and he considers himself a liberal. He was sitting in a short sleeved button down camp chair with cute little fish swimming around. His gray hair was covered with a panama hat, and he looked like he was ready for a day at the beach, maybe he was about to suggest we grab a few beers since it was 5 o’clock somewhere.
“Alternative [to Newsom’s proposal] Gel and pressure are pressed. So what are your civil liberties there?” He asked no one in particular. The ACLU was not present.
Bob Britton, whose nephew has severe mental illness, lives outside the state capitol in Sacramento. “Alternative [to the governor’s proposal] Gel and pressure are pressed. So what are your civil liberties there?” asked Britton, who supports the Care Court scheme.
(Anita Chabria/Los Angeles Times)
That’s the frustration that brought Britton and other family caregivers out on cloudy August days in the final weeks of the legislative session to wave their signs at lawmakers who had no political need to acknowledge them.
These families feel their lived experiences have been ignored in the debate about Newsom’s plan for Care Court, a civil pathway to mental health treatment. They are more fed up with serious mental illness being a political problem, or a civil rights one, than a medical condition.
Much of the controversy surrounding Newsom’s proposal has centered on what it could mean for homeless people on the street, given the enormity of California’s homeless crisis. But there are also families trying to get mental health care for adult relatives First They end up on the streets or end up in the criminal justice system, where again these families have no say in the treatment of their loved ones.
And these caretakers lack political muscle. They spend more time helping their individual than organizing for collective action. Many have been fighting for decades against a system that talks a lot about mercy but keeps people in handcuffs rather than hospitals.
“We are not family members who are there to push or boss or dictate. We are family members who have learned how to [handle mental illness] in a respectful way, and we’re willing to learn,” Elizabeth Kaino Hopper told me. “We understand that we can’t fix it. We understand that we cannot cure it. But we can be partners. This is family. We will not give up.”
Kaino Hopper’s daughter began to suffer from mental illness after an attack in college. Over the years, she lived on the streets, sharing boxes with other vulnerable people until she deteriorated. One night, she pulled a knife on someone when she felt threatened, Kaino Hopper said. Now she’s in jail, found incompetent to stand trial and waiting months for a bed in a state hospital — where she’ll receive enough coercive therapy to stabilize her to return to criminal proceedings.
It’s a story that’s painfully common. Mental health is already criminalized, and these family members know it all too well.
Britton had just returned from Los Angeles, where he attended the felony sentencing of his nephew, who will serve two years in state prison. To hear Britton tell it, the nephew, whom he asked not to be named, began having psychotic episodes in his 20s. Britton’s sister bought a trailer for her son to live in, but she yelled at the neighbors and ripped out all the wires.
He began living at a freeway off-ramp in Long Beach, where his mother would bring him energy bars and clean socks, Britton said.
Sometime between the trailer and the offramp, Britton said, his nephew served county jail time for setting fire to a dumpster on a cold night. When he was released, he was placed in a group home where he recovered. He was on a treatment plan that included regular injections of antipsychotic medication. Britton says when his nephew, who is 44, is on medication, he is “very clear”.
But then he graduated to a studio apartment, and the drug was switched from injections to pills. His nephew stopped taking them because “he didn’t believe he had a disease,” Britton said. “He likes his illusions. And so he became more psychotic and that led to this.”
It is an assault with a deadly weapon charge that allegedly involved pelting a man with a stone who may have yelled at his nephew for handling him in an offramp.
It’s strange for me to be on the opposite side of an issue from the ACLU, an organization that tirelessly fights the good fight. I agree with the group’s concern that removing civil rights from anyone, even someone who cannot make their own decisions, should not be taken lightly.
In a June blog post, “Why We Fiercely Oppose the Governor’s Care Court Proposal—And You Should, Too,” ACLU advocates argued that any “proposal dealing with the courts is regressive. It harkens back to a dark age when people with serious mental health conditions Forced treatment was common. It will expose decades of hard-won progress by the disability rights movement to secure self-determination, equality and dignity for people with disabilities.”
And in the official opposition letter to the Legislature, co-authored by more than three dozen civil rights and social advocacy organizations that I respect, it argues that, “The right framework allows people with disabilities to maintain autonomy in their own lives. They are provided with affordable, accessible, voluntary services.” , with meaningful and reliable access to integrated housing.
Critics also charge that Care Court – which stands for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court – could unfairly target black and brown people, who are disproportionately diagnosed with mental illness. This is a real concern about the racism that permeates almost every aspect of our unequal society. But I would point out that black and brown people are already more incarcerated, meaning they are already subject to more coercive treatment than people outside. CARE Courts will actually keep more people out of the criminal justice pipeline.
I don’t condemn any of the ACLU arguments, really – we need to have a real conversation on this issue. But the group conceded that there are many California families who are unable to find treatment or housing for loved ones. Those families are desperate for any chance to change our new, post-institutionalized norm—homelessness, incarceration, and death with dire consequences.
There are many reasons – including lack of supportive housing, treatment providers and many others. But we lack the accountability, and sometimes common sense, that a care court can provide.
Because while we believe that our most severely mentally ill patients are alone in the world, I’ve lost count of the number of families like Britton and Keino Hopper who have spent their lives serving their mentally ill loved ones. They are told at every turn that they have no right to interfere. They said their opinions were irrelevant and they asked for help until they were clear enough to resume their decisions because their loved one needed to take medication.
But if a mother or a sister or an uncle does not have the right to help, to say how their loved one is treated, where they end up and what happens to them in their weakest moments, who does?
Our current answer is the police and the criminal courts, and it’s a pathetic response.
This column is part of The Times’ mental health initiative, For Your Mind, an effort to increase coverage of treatment, public policy, wellness and culture related to mental health in California communities.