Sarah Loewe 
As a mental health court decide, I function every single working day with people today who are homeless and have serious mental illness. My conditions include persons from all in excess of Los Angeles County. The people today you see dwelling on the streets in your neighborhood are the individuals in my courtroom.
Over 9 a long time in this part I have assisted connect hundreds to procedure. I have found what functions and what doesn’t.
In my expertise, what will work is the type of support provided by the L.A. County Workplace of Diversion and Reentry. ODR has developed a observe file — supported by knowledge — of moving persons with psychological wellness troubles out of jail and onto a route to permanent supportive housing, retaining them off the streets and out of hospitals and incarceration prolonged time period.
Regrettably, ODR is not funded sufficiently to serve anyone who could advantage from its courses. Of the much more than 13,500 folks in Los Angeles County’s jail procedure, 41% have severe psychological wellbeing problems, a share that has amplified in modern several years. That proportion also involves a larger proportion of Black persons than does the general jail inhabitants.
ODR’s housing program was capped at 2,200 slots, which it crammed in excess of a calendar year ago. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors debated a movement in late June to maximize the variety of slots to 2,700 by July 1, 2023. As an alternative of committing to that modest very first step, it passed a movement that calls for even further study of likely growth. This is a skipped prospect to extend ODR’s precious work.
ODR was formed by the Board of Supervisors in 2015 primarily based on a recommendation by then-Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. Considering that then, experiments have demonstrated the in general good results charge of ODR to be extraordinary.
A 2019 Rand Corp. report uncovered that a year after staying served by ODR’s supportive housing applications, 74% experienced secure housing and 86% remained absolutely free of new felony convictions. An additional Rand examine revealed in 2020 concluded that much more folks in the county’s court docket technique have to have access to its expert services. The premiums of felony re-offense, failure to surface in courtroom and hospitalization for psychiatric desires are appreciably decrease than the costs for those who are not presented an ODR spot.
As of June, ODR had produced additional than 8,000 persons from jail into local community products and services by way of its different programs. Because the workplace launched, I have labored carefully with it on a day by day basis. In spite of incredible problems, I have observed its workers execute the seemingly unachievable: Build housing, give medication and sturdy treatment method, and give people today a probability they have not had in several years, if at any time. The members are supported by an onsite remedy staff of case professionals, therapists, nurses and psychiatrists. In what I have found, the ODR individuals realize that men and women are individuals, irrespective of their instances, and they deliver empathy, coronary heart and perseverance to their get the job done.
This is not to say ODR is prosperous in every situation. Some members stop up back again on the avenue, thanks to drug abuse and other problems.
Even so, the agency’s results stands out. All through my time on the bench, I have served on quite a few committees and endeavor forces on a area, state and nationwide amount centered on aiding folks with psychological disease. Nationwide, courts face the identical aggravating troubles: deficiency of suitable treatment resources and housing, moreover a damaged psychological health and fitness procedure. They are remaining to deal with enormous numbers of folks with mental illness who are caught up in the prison justice program due to the fact they did not get right care in the first area. In February 2020, when I hosted a team of judges from Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland and Oregon who traveled to Los Angeles to notice ODR’s function firsthand, their response was emphatic: They wished they had access to a similar company.
Yet here where the model is up and operating, ODR’s housing method has been unable to take any new scenarios from criminal courts for about a 12 months. I really do not talk for my colleagues or for the Los Angeles County Outstanding Court, but I do know this pause on the application has been a enormous resource of stress for my fellow judges.
ODR carries on to provide other systems to hundreds of individuals who are referred from felony courtroom to my psychological health and fitness court. But inadequate funding for the place of work overall usually means that in some cases a circumstance ought to be dismissed from my courtroom and the individual is produced from jail back again onto our streets — frequently with no cure or guidance.
It doesn’t make feeling to feed that cycle by delaying the expansion of an strategy we by now know is effective.
James Bianco is a California Superior Court choose who has been assigned to the Mental Well being Courthouse in Los Angeles considering the fact that 2013.
