California case shows the flaws in the system
OAKLAND, Calif. — The big brother Suzette Chaumette remembers was witty and kind, an aspiring historian at the University of California, Berkeley whose promise was derailed by mental illness. Over the decades, he struggled with bipolar disorder, cycling in and out of hospitals and halfway homes and into homelessness.
In June, she saw him on the local news, lying on the ground and under arrest for allegedly throwing a water bottle at California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Authorities called the 54-year-old man “aggressive.” It was the first time she had seen him in years.
“I never thought he would be that guy, but he is that guy,” she said, crying. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s got great intentions and really would take the help if he was in the right place.”
In California, a quarter of the 161,000 people experiencing homelessness also have a severe mental illness. An estimated 37,000 people pinball between nonprofits and public agencies, cycling through ERs, jails and the streets, sometimes for decades, with no one monitoring their overall care in a fractured system that nobody entirely knows how to fix.
There aren’t enough places for people like Suzette’s brother, Serge Chaumette, who likely require long-term clinical care, says Paul C. Webster, director of Hope Street Coalition. People with brain disorders need a range of living situations where they can “step down” from oversight as they improve.
But government reimbursement for that kind of care is low to nonexistent, he says. Medicaid, for example, will not pay for treatment in “institutions for mental disease” that have more than 16 beds.
“The public just doesn’t know. They’re mad about all the encampments and people on the streets because they don’t understand what it takes to deal with this other than to clear them out,” said Margot Dashiell, vice president of the East Bay chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Newsom, 53, was in downtown Oakland to promote small businesses when he was “approached by an aggressive individual,” said Fran Clader, spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol, which provides security for the governor. Newsom appeared unharmed and joked about the incident.
Chaumette was booked into jail and released within a day. He has no cellphone, and his family did not know where he was.
He didn’t appear at arraignment hearings the following month in a separate case in which he allegedly spat at an officer in March while being taken to a county-run psychiatric hospital on an involuntary hold.
On Friday, Alameda County deputy public defender Jeff Chorney said Chaumette is receiving care for his illness and that all charges should be dropped.
“We cannot continue to treat people with mental health issues by locking them in a cage,” he said in a statement.
Governments at all levels have been disinvesting in mental health for decades. John F. Kennedy wanted to replace state asylums with federal community clinics, but the transition never happened. States started shedding psychiatric beds, and those that are available are increasingly reserved for criminal defendants, the Treatment Advocacy Center in Virginia reported.
No state meets the gold standard in care, but some cities have innovative programs, said Elizabeth Sinclair Hancq, the center’s research director. New York City has a pioneering mental health clubhouse that addresses social isolation, while Tucson, Arizona, uses a robust crisis center model to connect people to services and bypass jail.
Acknowledging such shortcomings, Newsom signed a $12 billion spending plan this year dedicated to homelessness, including converting motel rooms for housing and enhancing facilities for people with addiction and mental illness. More than a quarter of the country’s estimated 580,000 unhoused residents live in California.