Commentary: We can’t stand idly by when there are people who cannot help themselves

When state Sen. Nicholas Petris (D), a progressive legend, and Assemblyman Frank Lanterman (R), an iconic statesman from La Cañada Flintridge, put forth legislation to end our state’s inhumane practice of involuntarily placing people with mental illness, developmental disabilities and chronic substance abuse challenges into squalid institutions, the legislators’ intention was to improve the lives and restore the rights of our society’s most disadvantaged.

The passing of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 1967 was a pivotal moment for the rights of those living with mental illness and was the result of a bipartisan effort to solve an egregious state practice. Prior to the act, our state did not treat our disadvantaged in order to return them to society, but instead quarantined them from the rest of our daily lives. At that time, the ruling sentiment was clear, “Those people are not our problem.”

Today, we recognize the issue for what it is — a public health crisis. Those with grave mental illness who do not have access to the support they need are our responsibility. It is against this backdrop that Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) and I have put forth AB 1971 to update state law to make up for some of the unintended consequences of past reforms.

It was Petris himself who admitted to those unintended consequences later on saying in his Oral History (1989) “… if you’re going to save a person from the abuse of a very harsh and oppressive system that didn’t give a damn whether you were mentally ill or not, but just putting you away; and then you made it so difficult for that same mechanism to put away someone who really needed it, you’re creating all kinds of other problems.”

AB 1971 will allow us to help the homeless if a lack of treatment may result in substantial physical harm or death. Under current law, officials can only take people into treatment without consent if they are deemed to be gravely disabled or pose a danger to themselves or others.

AB 1971 is not a regressive bill that intends to return us to the days of depositing the “mentally ill” into institutions for the rest of their lives. Rather, it seeks to help those who are unable to help themselves.

The number of people who are dying on our streets has nearly doubled since 2013. Last year, Los Angeles County alone reported 831 deaths, with the total number statewide reaching into the thousands. How many of those deaths were preventable?

We live in a different era; the California of today is not the California of the 1960s. We have more supportive and rehabilitative infrastructure than we had back then. We’ve taken great strides to move away from the institutional model of care in which Californians with disabilities were warehoused. We have worked to build community-centered models where those individuals can live more full and independent lives. We also have the political will and elected officials who see this public health crisis not as an issue that we can “sweep under the rug,” but as one that needs to be addressed head-on.

When people are dying, it is never okay to stand idly by.

Of course, the success of this measure is also dependent upon additional legislation put forth this year to address this systemic crisis. AB 1971 can open the door, but it only works if we have the housing, healthcare and supportive services at the ready to serve those in need. That’s why you’ll see us working on common sense steps to better link housing and services. For example, it can take years to get affordable housing built. For individuals in crisis, this delay becomes an insurmountable barrier. I’m proud to be a co-author on AB 2162 by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) to fast track the development of affordable housing with supportive services. By cutting the red tape, we can get critical projects off of the ground and people off our streets.

If we’re going to get this right, we are going to need everyone’s input. There are plenty of valid concerns about legislation that expands the definition of “gravely disabled” as there are equally just arguments in favor of it. We know one thing for sure: We cannot continue to stand by as a rising number of people die on our streets due to lack of care.

We need to act now, so we invite you to the table. In order to get this right, we are looking to hear from everyone to ensure that AB 1971 only does the one thing that it intends to do — save lives.

LAURA FRIEDMAN (D-Glendale) represents La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Montrose, Glendale, Burbank and neighboring communities in the the 43rd Assembly District.