BART board declines to endorse homeless conservatorship bill

Elected officials on the BART Board of Directors took a pass on endorsing a controversial state conservatorship bill, which is aimed at treating mentally ill, chronically homeless people.

At a Thursday BART Board of Directors regular meeting, agency officials acknowledged its struggles with people who don’t have homes and seek shelter by sleeping in BART stations.

Ultimately, the board voted to not endorse the measure.

“There are a lot of groups I highly respect who are opposing it,” said BART board director Rebecca Saltzman, at the meeting. Saltzman represents Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Senate Bill 1045, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, would create a five-year pilot program in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties to establish a new category of conservatorships for people deemed incapable of caring for their own health and well-being due to serious mental illness or substance use disorders.

Business groups such as the Bay Area Council, Hotel Council of San Francisco, Golden Gate Restaurant Association and San Francisco Chamber of Commerce are in support of the bill, along with the California Hospital Association and California Psychiatric Association. Groups in opposition include the American Civil Liberties Union, California Association of Mental Health Patients’ Rights Advocates, Public Conservators, Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco and Mental Health America Los Angeles.

The bill is now pending action in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, with a deadline of August 17 to pass it to the Assembly floor.

Saltzman noted she was “concerned” about the long list of opponents. She and Director Lateefah Simon abstained from the vote. BART Board of Directors President Robert Raburn, who represents Alameda County, voted against endorsing the bill. Directors Nick Josefowitz, John McPartland, Thomas Blalock and Debora Allen voted to endorse the bill.

Directors Joel Keller and Bevan Dufty were absent from the vote. Dufty represents San Francisco and requested the vote to endorse the bill.

The proposal to endorse the bill failed to net a majority vote. Jim Lazarus, senior vice president of public policy at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, noted it was an odd vote considering BART has become a place “just like the streets where people seek shelter,” including people that are “clearly mentally ill, conservatorship laws are relevant to the mission of BART.”

He added, “the riding public should be concerned that BART directors did not weigh-in in a timely fashion.”

Notably, BART police would not be able to directly recommend individuals for conservatorship evaluations, a power the bill assigns to county sheriffs, director of county mental health departments or public social services, among others.

Despite this legal barrier, BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas told the board the agency would be comfortable in calling sheriffs and other entities to recommend homeless people in BART stations to conservatorship evaluations.

Josefowitz requested the board be allowed to take another vote to endorse the bill at its next meeting, when the two absent directors would likely return. However, he was told the state legislative session would be over before the BART board’s next meeting — too late to tell the state how BART feels its ever-growing homeless population should be treated.

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BART board declines to endorse homeless conservatorship bill

Assembly passes Stern’s bill aimed at helping ‘the most vulnerable’

An effort to help Californians most in need, authored by Sen. Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park, passed the Legislature on Thursday, and is now headed to Gov. Jerry Brown for a signature.

Senate Bill 1045 would establish a five-year pilot program authorizing San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego counties to create a conservatorship focused on providing critical services and housing to the most vulnerable, who suffer from mental health and substance abuse issues, and who cannot care for themselves.

“Currently, local governments’ hands are tied when gravely disabled Californians experiencing homelessness refuse services,” Stern said. “The old model of conservatorship doesn’t give us the flexibility we need to address the crisis.”

A conservatorship is a court case where a judge appoints a responsible person or organization, called the “conservator,” to care for another adult, called the “conservatee,” who can’t care for himself or herself or manage his or her own finances, according to the Judicial Council of California’s website.
The bill, which was also supported by Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, essentially expands and strengthens existing California conservatorship laws. 

“People who can’t help themselves are dying on the streets, and our communities suffer with them,” Stern’s office said in a news release. “This law will give our local leaders the power to update and modernize our antiquated and inhumane conservatorship system.”

The five-year pilot program would focus on housing with wraparound services to care for those who are mentally ill or otherwise unable to care for themselves. Under the bill, a county’s Board of Supervisors would have to opt in to the program by a vote via resolution, as is the case under Laura’s Law, and ensure that no resources dedicated to voluntary services and programs are curtailed or diverted in order to support this conservatorship.

Once a county votes to establish such a program, in order for an individual to be considered for conservatorship, an individual must be suffering from serious mental illness and substance use disorder, such that those co-occurring conditions have resulted in frequent detentions under a 5150 hold, or frequently being held for psychiatric evaluation and treatment.  

Los Angeles County officials, through 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s office, said Thursday they brought forth competing legislation, AB 1791, which was held on the Assembly floor due to concerns over amendments that were added to the bill in the Judiciary Committee, according to Eric Matos, Barger’s deputy in charge of health and legislative affairs.

Matos said both bills work to address issues surrounding conservatorship that have been brought to officials, “particularly, around (the term) grave disability, the concern where individuals who are in need of treatment and they’re having chronic issues, they’re not qualifying for a conservatorship because the current definition lacks the clarity needed.”

The current law is subject to interpretation, Matos said, noting the qualifications for someone to need a conservatorship state an inability to provide one’s self with food, clothing and shelter, however, the definition of shelter, i.e. a home and a lean-to under a freeway underpass could both be considered shelter, as an example.

The bill by Stern and Wiener also requires San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego counties to form working groups to assess the effectiveness of this new conservatorship, including collecting data that would be used to determine the effectiveness of the five-year pilot program. 

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Assembly passes Stern’s bill aimed at helping ‘the most vulnerable’