Posts Tagged: Laura Wilcox

News

Shifting politics pushes mental health care onto the agenda

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

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.

News

The growing push for major action on mental health and homelessness

Via Shutterstock

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.

News

Real change proves elusive in mental health care system

An illustration of the brain and potential links to instability -- including mental illness. Some elements provided by NASA.(Image: GrAI, via Shutterstock)

Important legislation to improve California’s broken mental health system was passed this year, plus billions in new funding in the state budget — all aimed at stemming the tide of a growing crisis on California streets, in hospital ER’s, jails and prisons. But will it mean real change?

News

Auditor slams state mental-health system, revives Laura’s Law

A troubled woman alone deals with issues alone. (Photo: Stokkete, via Shutterstock)

A massive and highly critical state auditor’s report has given new life to legislation to deal with California’s notoriously troubled mental-health system. The shift comes as state lawmakers, convening amid the COVID-19 pandemic, face hundreds of bills in the closing days of the legislative session.

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