Monterey County staff outline CARE Court rollout, warn of heavy court and housing workload

Monterey County officials outlined plans for implementing California's Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Feb. 4, describing the new court-supervised pathway for people with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders and the county's preparations since the program launched statewide.

County Interim Behavioral Health Bureau Chief Melanie Rhodes told the board that Monterey County went live on Dec. 1, 2024 as part of cohort 2 and that the CARE process uses a civil-court petition to create a court-supervised, voluntary treatment pathway intended to stabilize people in the community with wraparound services, medication and housing.

Rhodes said the county convened multiagency planning teams led by Judge Culver with participation from the public defender, district attorney, court self-help center, public guardian and behavioral health staff, and won “start-up” funding for planning tasks. She warned, however, that CARE requires an extensive, ongoing workload for county behavioral health: preparing lengthy written reports before hearings, serving notices and reports personally, and providing wraparound…