Posts Tagged: Helen Thomson

Shifting politics pushes mental health care onto the agenda

Laura Wilcox, whose shooting death in Nevada County inspired "Laura's Law." (Family photo)

by DAN MORAIN posted 11.02.2023

Ever since Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967 granting people with severe mental illness greater rights and speeding the emptying of state asylums, governors have been sidestepping the issue, until now. Unlike governors before him in this state or perhaps any other, Newsom is confronting the issue of untreated mental illness.

The growing push for major action on mental health and homelessness

Via Shutterstock

by BY SIGRID BATHEN posted 02.22.2023

A growing chorus of critics say well-intentioned but archaic laws – designed to protect individual rights, with stiff restrictions on what constitutes “grave disability” – prevent desperate families from getting severely mentally ill relatives into treatment, leaving them to suffer and die on the street.