When Jennifer Su pulled as much as the site visitors island the place Adrian Gutierrez usually panhandled, she noticed the soft-spoken man she knew to be grateful to simply accept a sandwich or slice of pizza now spiraling right into a match of rage, shouting obscenities at himself and nobody.
She known as 911, pleading with the dispatcher to take Gutierrez to a psychiatric facility. However upon returning to the intersection in Pacheco, a small, residential neighborhood close to Harmony, she discovered the troubled man speaking to himself and begging for cash, his situation quickly deteriorating.
After Su, who met Gutierrez by means of her son’s struggles with homelessness, discovered that he had been briefly booked into county jail on drug possession costs, she despatched a determined e-mail to the general public defender representing his case.
“The weather can be over 100 (degrees) and he will still have a heavy coat on as if he’s insensate to heat,” she wrote. “Whenever I see Adrian, I feel he will die soon if he doesn’t get help.”
Three months later, these fears have been realized. On a cold morning this January, a good friend who typically stayed with Gutierrez beneath a close-by freeway overpass discovered him mendacity chilly and immobile on the concrete. The coroner’s workplace stated his post-mortem is pending. He was 38.
To forestall extra individuals like Gutierrez from struggling on the road, all California counties should now undertake new reforms geared toward making it simpler for the court docket system to compel these with extreme psychological well being and habit points into therapy. They embrace a voter-backed initiative final November to toughen penalties for drug possession and a lately enacted state regulation that creates a brand new civil course of to get individuals into therapy applications.
As counties part within the reforms, the failed makes an attempt to assist Gutierrez within the months and years main as much as his dying reveal the necessity for brand new approaches to connecting many 1000’s of the state’s most susceptible residents to therapy. On the identical time, they spotlight the challenges that already overburdened native behavioral well being and justice methods face in managing a possible inpouring of sufferers and defendants.
Some civil rights advocates fear the brand new court docket processes will accomplish little besides to land extra individuals in jail and conservatorship. However Dr. Maria Raven, chief of emergency drugs at UCSF Well being, stated the adjustments might enhance a long time of coverage that has tended to prioritize individuals’s private liberties over their acute wants.
She warned, nonetheless, that the success of the brand new measures hinges on the extent of funding in therapy, social providers and supportive housing.
“I’ve seen, throughout my career, initiatives like this, and I haven’t seen them work on a large scale because we don’t have the resources,” Raven stated. One of many reforms, Proposition 36, doesn’t include new funding.
Earlier than his dying, Gutierrez was well-known to Contra Costa County’s court docket and behavioral well being methods. At one level, a choose ordered him right into a drug therapy program, just for him to finish up utilizing once more on the road, in keeping with court docket information. Mates and relations described different failed makes an attempt by numerous outreach groups to assist him into therapy or housing.
County officers and Gutierrez’s public defender declined to debate particulars of his case.
Rising up within the Harmony space, Gutierrez was a form and cheerful child who graduated highschool with good grades, his cousin Joseph Ramirez remembered. However as soon as Gutierrez’s mom died about 15 years in the past, he grew to become overwhelmed with grief and fell into homelessness, Ramirez stated.
Cheryl Martinez, an in depth good friend who as soon as lived on the road with Gutierrez, recalled how a caseworker helped him discover an inexpensive housing complicated in Oakland. Nonetheless, homesick in an odd metropolis, he quickly moved out to reunite along with his homeless mates again in Contra Costa County, Martinez stated.
“You know how people get institutionalized? You also get that way being on the street,” Martinez stated.
In 2017, Gutierrez was charged with methamphetamine possession and agreed to enter a rehab program, in keeping with court docket information. However 18 months later, a choose issued a warrant for his arrest for failing to finish his therapy plan. It’s unclear why Gutierrez flunked out of this system. The case was finally dismissed within the “interest of justice.”
Gutierrez confronted comparable misdemeanor drug costs final yr. However that point, he was sentenced to twenty days in jail and a yr of probation.
Behavioral well being researchers say that whereas court-ordered therapy can present the wanted push to assist individuals get clear, additionally they level to analysis exhibiting a scarcity of conclusive proof it results in higher outcomes than voluntary therapy. They are saying that even with the specter of jail time, it usually takes drug customers a number of makes an attempt earlier than they’re prepared to finish a rehab plan or settle for supportive housing.
One other problem is the scarcity of 1000’s of therapy beds and behavioral well being staff statewide. Nonetheless, a brand new $6.4 billion psychological well being bond is estimated so as to add roughly 6,800 drug and psychological well being beds and 26,700 outpatient therapy slots statewide within the coming years.
One of many new reform measures, Prop 36, will increase jail sentences to as much as three years for a 3rd drug possession conviction however provides repeat offenders the choice to finish a therapy program as an alternative of incarceration and have the felony wiped away.
In Contra Costa County, District Legal professional Diana Becton opposed the proposition as a result of it lacks cash for therapy and can possible slash funding to the very applications being requested to simply accept extra sufferers. Nonetheless, the DA’s workplace has thus far charged no less than 18 drug offenders below the brand new regulation.
Ellen McDonnell, the county’s lead public defender, worries the measure might imply much less funding for the small group of caseworkers her workplace employs to assist defendants with drug and psychological well being challenges.
She’s extra optimistic about CARE Court docket, a brand new program enabling members of the family, well being care staff, regulation enforcement and others to refer these with extreme psychological well being and drug points earlier than a choose, who can then order a therapy plan. Since launching in December, 31 individuals have been referred to this system within the county.
Though McDonnell stated CARE Court docket is designed to be voluntary and “meet people where they are over time,” contributors who refuse to endure therapy could possibly be appointed a authorized guardian, referred to as a conservator, with the authority to pressure them into locked amenities.
It’s unclear if anybody sought to refer Gutierrez to the fledgling CARE Court docket earlier than he died. Su known as on officers to higher educate the general public on how this system can hopefully save lives.
“It’s really important that 911 operators, police, hospital workers, that they’re aware that this is a resource,” she stated.
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