New Law Allows Involuntary Addiction Treatment but Humboldt Opts for CARE Court
Housing and homelessness funding and services were discussed during a Jan. 13 update presentation to supervisors.
In an update on homelessness to the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, a new state law that expands the categories of involuntary mental health holds to include severe substance use disorder was described as largely unworkable, and the county is prioritizing voluntary holds instead.
County Behavioral Health Deputy Director Paul Bugnacki said involuntary holds aren’t practical because “the state does not have the infrastructure to support those types of holds.” He said an alternative approach developed by the county and local treatment organizations opens a more viable “pathway” to treatment instead.
“There are no facilities in California where somebody detained on a legal hold can go and get mandated treatment,” Ward continued. “Nor is it empirically supported in the data around the efficacy of mandated SUD (Substance Use Disorder) treatment. Our approach really is to focus in on the individual, developing a relationship with those individuals to help them to get to a place where they are voluntarily willing to go into treatment.”
The new state law, SB 43, has been in effect since January 1, yet Bugnacki said Humboldt has only done one involuntary hold for substance use disorder.
The county’s more active course of action is its recently formed Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court (CARE Court).
Supervisor Rex Bohn questioned the effectiveness of voluntary treatment, saying it “hasn’t been very successful” in addressing the most chronic situations.
Bugnacki said the county has “spent the better part of a year leading up to CARE Court in preparation for implementation with our court system and our other interested parties,” adding, “I think that has been utilized for individuals like that, that you’re speaking to.”
CARE Court is a civil court, not a criminal one, where members of the community can “petition to have somebody go into,” Bugnacki explained.
The county’s Superior Court and Behavioral Health Division websites have “instructional videos and helpful links about how to petition to have somebody engage in CARE Court,” he said. “Our county has stood out above other counties based on the numbers of petitions that we’ve put forward, that the community has put forward,” Bugnacki continued, adding that other counties are “really interested in what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”
County Department of Health and Human Services staff members also highlighted projects on the horizon, including the Crisis Triage Center planned to open in Arcata sometime in 2027 and expansion of the Mobile Intervention Services Team (MIST).
Supervisors discussed the seemingly intractable conditions related to homelessness, with Bohn saying, “We’re never gonna fix it, all we can do is make it better.”
There was acknowledgment of factors beyond personal issues like addiction and mental illness. County Housing Assistance Coordinator Robert Ward said housing costs are making it difficult for people to achieve permanent housing, as “you have to earn a lot of money to pay the rent around here.”
Board Chair Mike Wilson said “the pressure of the cost of housing” figures significantly and related homelessness to a larger political context. “A huge factor in this is just our national issue around wealth inequality,” he said. “I just have to really say it very clearly – one of the things that that wealth inequality drives is the consolidation of housing as assets, which basically is causing a lot of housing to go basically vacant in many, many places.” He added, “We can talk about mental health issues and we can talk about those other issues, but getting people into housing that exists today is becoming more difficult.”
On housing- and homelessness-related funding, Ward said the county has $1.2 million in federal funding for the year beginning in late October 2025, and $500 million in state funding is “planned” but not yet approved. Federal policies aim to change funding formulas, and Ward said recently set rules would have capped the level of spending on permanent housing to 30 percent of the county’s federal contribution. He said the new rules would have also given the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development “the right to reject applicants that previously or currently embraced policies that facilitate racial preferences or engaged in activities that violate the sex binary in humans.”
But a court case was filed and a preliminary injunction has been granted. For now, the federal government is ordered to “go back to the Biden-era plan,” Ward said.
That allows the county to spend 91 percent of its federal funding on permanent supportive housing, which will serve about 80 people in about 70 households “on any given night,” Ward said.
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The old adage “either you quit or you die” comes to mind.
At one time the state ran the Calif Rehabilitation Center. Don’t know if it’s still there.
Addicts convicted of crimes were sent there for around 6 months. Problem was, not much treatment was given nor any real help after release. Got a lot of recidivism. Get out, go back to same neighborhood, same friends. No plans, no money. It’s a vicious circle.
Addicts when they do get clean need strong support for months afterwards. Or even longer. Jobs, housing, continued treatment. It’s a lifelong disease.
That’s exactly right but he was supposed to pay for it? Conservatives don’t want this type of treatment to be paid for by taxpayers.
In the long run taxpayers pay the price for failure to effectively treat these people anyway.
But liberals want the government to pay for treatment yet ever seem to care that the money they allot doesn’t do anything real. It is always posturing. And taxpayer pay the price for ineffectual laws and get only increasing problems in return too.
Churches had much better success, for free, but they’re all empty now. There are many people who want to create that support group, just to have more meaning in their own lives. But that requires training wheels on responsibility. Most addicts refuse that continued follow up.
Also, homelessness and addiction are big business in Humboldt County now. Possibly the only growing source of income. Probably nothing will change until there is another source of income.
Years ago, when The War on Poverty Act was introduced by LBJ and came into law, welfare crept into the lives of many and it helped to do the reverse. Destroyed the family unit. Instead of sticking together, it was too easy to leave and then depend on food stamps and other means instead of parents supporting each other by staying together, raising children with family structure. That impact was not healthy for a child. Substance abuse seemed to increase.
High cost of housing. As regulations increased and the cost of repairs to the damage done to the property by renters, along with the higher costs of insurance, water and recology increase, everything has become something nobody seems to want to take into account as that amount of money needed to maintain the property became part of the need to raise rents.
I cant believe why the down votes, They think you’re making it up?
Yes, just thinking the same thing.
He is.
People are finicky and think a downvote somehow directs their policy-making wishes. I could give away 24k gold bars on a corner, and someone will downvote a post about it.
I’m just letting you know I downvoted you as a joke.
They do not want to believe it. Even if you had evidence they would close their ears and eyes and babble away to not hear you…They refuse to believe what they don’t want to hear…
While SNAP is not a perfect program, and has had unintended side effects that shouldn’t be ignored, it’s also been a huge help for those who use it for its intended purpose. Dumping SNAP cause it needs refinement is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The real trouble is fixing anything to make it work better always gets advocates screaming in headlines, beneficiaries complaining about negative effects, and political attacks. Whereas increasing the benefits only get silence.
Welfare only aggregates until some one does throw the filthy bathwater out, frequently baby and all. The hitch comes when trying to get new bathwater to replace the old that had a tangle of special interests, profits and politics soaking in it too. There’s no political glory and few advocates in financial responsibility. Such things can be easily expanded but it’s ugly trying to pull back.
This argument repeats claims that decades of evidence do not support.
The War on Poverty did not “destroy the family unit.” Family structure was already changing due to wage stagnation, industrial decline, and later mass incarceration.
Welfare benefits were modest and primarily reduced child poverty and hunger. Correlation is being mistaken for causation.
Substance abuse did not rise because of food stamps. Major increases track economic stress, pharmaceutical practices, and lack of access to treatment, patterns seen across very different welfare systems.
Housing costs are high not because of simple scarcity, but because housing is treated as an income asset. Large numbers of single family homes are removed from the ownership market and converted into rentals, inflating purchase prices.
Rent then follows those inflated mortgage and carrying costs, even when vacant units exist.
Blaming social programs or poor families avoids confronting the policy and market choices that actually produced today’s outcomes. It also completely ignores anything to be learned from other nations.
Sorry but I disagree. Give me proof that the War on Poverty has been a success. Poverty has increased. More should have been done to create an environment for people to thrive, not a program of dependency. I worked in a field that dealt with welfare recipients and heard many stories of what it did to families.
On the issue of rentals. You do realize every time rent is paid, a portion has to go to a new roof eventually, paint both inside and out, damage done by renters, property taxes, insurance, utilities and other costs. When the cost of all of these obligations rise, is the landlord not to be expected to have to raise rents? If you were responsible for this and add up all the costs that come with renting a property to someone and the exposure it brings, you might see that it’s not as easy as just getting rent money every month.
Just look at the middle class! Of course we won the war on drugs and poverty, we will win all the wars!
I know many mothers who raised their children on welfate. (Think “deadbeat dads). All of their children have gone on to successful lives. College, good jobs or started businesses. I call that success.
While I am really happy to hear about success stories and know there are some, there is also the scenario of one parent with substance abuse that render them incapable of parenting a child and the other parent in prison leaving a grandparent to raise the children with little retirement means and have to rely on public assistance to raise their grandchildren. These situations a lot of times end up in a less than happy outcome.
“County Behavioral Health Deputy Director Paul Bugnacki said involuntary holds aren’t practical because “the state does not have the infrastructure to support those types of holds.””
And thats because Ronald Reagan got rid of all the asylums that could be used to help these people! That’s what you get for having a TV star be your leader 😂
Civil rights groups pressured the change of having mandatory holds under the argument of the rights under the fourth amendment along with other arguments that ultimately closed those facilities.
Again with the Regan blaming. You’ve had 40 years now to come up with alternatives. Where are they? Quit complaining about it. At the time, when “community mental health” didn’t exist or was inefficient, all that care was state-run facilities, many of which were felt to be substandard by even top psych doctors at the time and lots of civil rights abuse especially if you weren’t white. Facilities and treatment just didn’t exist beyond forcibly locking up people who were even thought to be suffering a mental health crisis. They were treated like criminals, and really, neither Carter nor Regan liked that. Carter wanted the state to do it. Regan signed different legislation.
If you want to go back to the beginning, it wasn’t even Regan that came up with the idea. He merely signed the bills into law.
I’m not saying at all that things turned out badly system-wise, but keep in mind there were many players who sabotaged any good idea, or tried to. 1981 was a key when Regan overturned Jimmy Carters policy on a national level, but CA issues was when he was governor, not president. Carter’s commission on mental health.. Various bills passed in 1979
Effect on homelessness since then.
May 2, 1967 is when this was put into law. THAT day is important as it is also when the Black Panther Party pulled a J6 incursion at the state capitol, launching emergency legislation against open carry laws. Regan also signed these and the NRA has been pissed ever since.
Lanterman-Petris-Short Act or Community Mental Health Act, AB 1220–this was during Brown No.1 term and supported by the (D) party elite.
The Dilemma of Mental Health Commitments.
One BIG issue with all these attempts to commit people? Personal civil rights. THAT is a big one. Do people have them or not?
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/10/15/california-has-a-long-complicated-history-when-it-comes-to-treating-severe-mental-illness/
We all should remember his response to the AIDS crisis.
I was alive during that period of history and can’t ever forgive him.
And to this day, HIV drugs such as Trogarzo quite expensive. Right up there with chemo drugs.
Excellent comment Big Rick and so very true. Kind of like voting one of the three stooges into office.
But, look how much he saved for the taxpayers. (sark)
Ronald Reagan is also the man that publicly stated:
Don’t look to your government for help, they are the problem.
Care Court is naturally the option for county government- it costs the least and requires nothing much as its a civil process.
“But CalMatters investigations have found that so far, the program is falling short of expectations. It’s helping far fewer people than projected, it’s struggled to help homeless participants, and some families have had their hopes dashed when CARE Court failed to help their loved ones who can’t consent to treatment.
As of the end of October, California courts had received 3,092 CARE Court petitions, approved 684 treatment agreements and ordered 22 CARE plans, according to the Judicial Council of California. Newsom’s administration initially estimated between 7,000 and 12,000 Californians would qualify for CARE Court. ”
https://timesofsandiego.com/health/2025/12/28/new-california-law-expands-care-court/
It’s a joke. Even when mandated they still soft-pedal it and put the addict in the driver’s seat. Like handing a drowning person a pamphlet about swimming lessons and saying, “No pressure. Come when you’re ready… the whole system is built on the fantasy that people in psychosis, blackout-level addiction, or years-deep cognitive erosion are capable of making rational treatment decisions.
Those people ARE capable of making rational decisions. How many of them have asked for housing and trauma-informed counseling? How long have they waited to receive that treatment? How many of them have already been subjected to compulsory “treatment”, only to be discharged to a homeless shelter? How long do you expect them to last in that environment before they relapse? And, why should ANYONE be incarcerated in a jail or a “facility” because the cost of private housing is too high?
if you can’t answer those questions, you’re guilty of a bad decision: speaking in public from a place of ignorance and prejudice. Perhaps the state should be making all of your decisions for you? Maybe you deserve to be locked up?
The state should be your conservator.
In the front lines, the reason score is 38,000 “the FBI/CIA has implanted a device in my brain, I need money to buy a fighter jet, my boss or the police or my ex was out to get me, I worked all my life and it was stolen from me, my boss didn’t like me, I quit my job because my friends were talking a road trip, I’m not addicted- I self medicate, no one ever has given me a chance, etc,etc,etc” to one “I partied hard most of my life and now find myself here.”
There’s always an explanation but they all impossible to overcome. And that’s how people get there. They get out when they stop surrendering to their own narrative. “trauma-informed counseling?” That is a long, very expensive slog. There are few recovering drug addicts- always some looking for that career choice- out there who can make that work.
So basically just keep doing what doesn’t work?
Yes, that seems to be the Humboldt plan — everyone paid to help the homeless will still have jobs and the funding units (homeless people) will still be homeless.
Its the natural adaptation of the kleptocrat’s grift cult. This is the part no one on the left will admit, as good as their intent is with their motivation in voting for these things the simple fact is the monoparty lock down on the state means they dont even have to try, is there any world where they lose the election? The party that is, not one or another participant in the party. These same grifts are done on both sides of the isle just marketed differently to their marks.
Also as I stated yesterday the party line is this is quality of life issue and they will not punish them ( that is confine them involuntarily ) until society fixes their life for them, which they also must consent to and actively pursue as its their right to choose to not participate. The logic is circular and has been explained by its authors in depth. All one has to do is study its inception in SF where the current stars of the Dems ( Newsom and Harris ) where coming up at the time of the CARE not cash campaign.
There are no life sustaining jobs in Humboldt. Fishing, logging and cannabis, all resource extraction and unsustainable. Poverty kills motivation to rise having been shut down repeatedly. Get a degree in something, then try to go to work doing that, but shut down because you’ve never done it. Employers REFUSE to train people. Hopeless in Humboldt. Reality check. Retail economy. Crap jobs, minimum wage not enough to rent an apartment. Mental illness thrives in desperation.
What do you mean by “refuse”? It’s not up to the employer to give you B.A. levels of knowledge and training. You need to find that elsewhere. Some jobs require fairly extensive knowledge and/or prior experience. Is this your first job or something? Work in retail for a bit. Do the grind until something else that fits your needs comes along, which I will admit, is not likely here. There are “life-sustaining” jobs, but you’re not just going to walk in on those either, and it’s not their responsibility to get you 2 years of training if you just burn out and quit in 5 months. You wasted your time AND theirs. But you also need to define your idea of “life sustaining”. You want to hustle clothing and hardware for $100k a year so you can buy a BMW? You’ll need to own the store first.
I have to tell you that from years in corporate and production environments, if you think not having enough money to pay the rent causes you mental health declines, I invite you to navigate those environments for a few years and return to tell me your horror stories. People break down and snap just as much, except with bigger paychecks.
All I can say is keep a shovel handy and start building your own roads. Humboldt has always been like that, even when the mills and such were running (not everyone wanted to slog around with a chainsaw under the thumb of some alcoholic mill owner). This place is good for finding a niche that you can grow with, you just have to come up with one.
A job at Wing inflatables.
A Caltrans job, can you imagine working at last chance grade your entire life?
Yes, raise your family and full retirement doing repair to 101 in Del Norte County
The real issue is AI hiring platforms, I know no one here is discussing it but look in to the research the anti H1B groups have done, I know its facts from the other side but they are facts none the less. The AI platforms are being used by the tech bros who want India to import all its tech bros to here for them to team up in to a new caste system which is appealing to ELon and his pals. They will not hire unemployed Americans the system favors new hires fresh from school or freshly in America as they have no marks against them and give an employer the best chance of retaining the hire for life. The system will not hire anyone over 40. It also has racial bias.
There has been some success in addiction recovery in other parts of the country. Gabor Maté’s work in Seattle is one example that could be copied and implemented locally. The core components of the success are grounded in compassion and spiritual enrichment. The blueprint is already there unfortunately healing people does not align with our current capitalist mentality in the West.
The last time I was in Seattle their homeless / addiction problem was even worse than ours
Which is a net positive for agencies which serve the perpetuation of the ability to choose not to be treated. How much has been spent there? How many jobs where created? NGOs funded, that is the future of the technocrat authoritarian’s nanny state, the UBI model of social engineering, dependance on the state and its replacement of church as the now quasi religious authority on facts and morality. All the while grinding the asset holding working class in to poverty and a life of renting leasing and subscribing. I fear no one sees the forest for the trees, from what I can gather its all a myriad of little issues polarizing the herd perfectly along a guided equilibrium toward an engineered slave class and techno elite engineers of society and masters of perceivable reality running the world from bunkers like wizards in castles.
Its not about solving homelessness or drug addiction its about gatekeeping all the jobs in the administrative social services sector which is the same place all the fraud is occurring. This is the goal, more loyal tax paying underlings joining the fold, voting, building the consensus.
They’re bragging about 22 CARE plans out of 3,000+ petitions?
That’s a 1% success rate.
Humboldt county doesn’t want recovery, they want recurring revenue. 🤑
Every addict means more HUD dollars (homeless grants tied to Point-in-Time counts), more Medi-Cal reimbursements (ER visits, crisis teams, psych evals), more CalAIM billing (enhanced care management, “community supports”), more nonprofit contracts, more jail diversion grants, more harm reduction funding, more “innovative pilot programs”, more CARE Court staff hours, and more permanent supportive housing subsidies – basically, more “innovative” programs read: revenue streams, that don’t require results.
It must be either mandatory holds or jail. Catch and release is not humane in the end, and it encourages criminality.
Poverty is not a crime. It shouldn’t be punishable by imprisonment.
Housing and voluntary services are the ways forward. It costs hundreds of dollars per day to lock someone up. Nor is it cheap to drag someone through “mental health court” prior to locking them up.
And, don’t even get me started on the riots that would occur, if large numbers of law-abiding people were purged in broad daylight. Trust me, you haven’t seen real crime.
To repeat – “Housing and voluntary services Housing and voluntary services ” lol like there homeless volunteering, just lining up to become sober. Free housing, free food, free whatever, somewhat yes, but don’t ask anything in return.
By and large, one of the problems with all the free/discounted whatever housing and such is that while yes, it gives a solid roof over their heads and out of the elements, it also gives a warm, dry place to go right back to the bad habits they had out on the streets. It’s a nightmare for landlords and property managers, private or government.
Bull! There are millions of addicts who live in private housing. Their landlords are doing just fine. Low-income addicts could receive public housing and their landlords would fare just as well.
But, you do get something in return: orderly and clean public spaces that people will want to spend money on.
Permanent housing and voluntary services would pay for themselves.
Involuntary treatment for addiction is a waste of time and money. Addicts will not quit until they are ready to and even then it is hard.
So you are going to forcefully throw a bunch of addicts who do not want to quit and will sneak in drugs around the few fokls who are trying but are now tempted. Grat idea
Also it is a civil rights issue. It is not illegal to be an addict and the Supreme Court said in the 70s you can not detain someone civially unless they are a danger to themselves, a danger to others or gravy disabled. In shot the law, like many CA laws violate people’s rights.
Interesting to bring civil rights into the discussion. I appreciate that viewpoint , to a point.
What about our civil duty to protect life, public safety, and the vulnerable? We forcibly hospitalize people having strokes who don’t want treatment. We mandate quarantine for tuberculosis etc. We remove children from parents in psychosis….
So… why not intervene when someone is clearly deteriorating due to addiction? If someone is so sick with the disease of addiction they are void of insight, and capacity to care for themselves and keep themselves safe how is it not our civil duty to intervene?
1) Stop with the Narcan. Stop the needle exchange. Allow them all to do whatever they want. See the problem begin to work itself out
Or…2) Put drug dealers to death. Allow addicts 3 strikes-supply them w/ rehab and job training w/ an actual job at the end along w/ housing. They can screw it up 2x but when they screw it up a 3rd time then give them the death penalty. See the problem work itself out.
One thing I guarantee is that by continuing to do the same damn thing over and over you will accomplish nothing but a black hole of resources wasted and increasing drug addicts with drug dealers backed by cartel-affiliated gangs in your town. But I guess we like that?