need it the most not only those but we need to be clear not everyone will qualify there are restrictions to qualify you have to determine not to survive dinl on your own and have a history of hospitals and be diagnosed with mental health protons problems. having been offered this opportunity for treatment but be substantially deteriorating in our community. i'll argue our headlong health system is one of the finest in the country the reeflt we have individuals slipping through the crosswalks and laura's law will hope those individuals. laura's law focuses an

individual and 44 other jurisdictions and states across our country they have proven incredible results and new york state a law called the tender law was enacted 74 percent fewer experienced homeless additional others psych hospitalized and 80 percent fewer were embarrassed and 87 percent fewer were arrested and laura's law will help to reduce the burdens on our san and our emergency officers and personnel and a positive resource for our officers. today, we'll hear from a number of individuals that that will speak in favor the laura's i wanted to recognize a number of people frail the if i that are

not here my colleagues and co-sponsors of this legislation supervisor london breed. is supervisor tang and supervisor wiener. i want to thank mayor ed lee for his support i want to thank the wilcox family the parents of laura that this law was named off after and our district attorney mr. george and our excessively enclosing our fire chief chief joanne haynes-white and countless others that are standing behind me barbara garcia and other colleagues that have provide shelters for the homeless. people from our labor and business organizations from across town this is a piece of legislation that should unite us

i look forward to it moving forward i want to introduce one the laura's supporters our great mayor of san francisco mayor ed lee >> (clapping) >> thank you supervisor farrell and thank you for your leadership on this as well. you, you know, san francisco is is a very came pact city. we spent $2.7 billion a year a great bulk here in the general hospital and the public health department aid thanks to the classification of our fire and scheef and district attorney we pick up a lot of people own the streets and we know when the environment they go back perhaps a day of respite and they're back. while we, provide pride in

moving some 18 thousand homeless people into shelters we see on the streets we have to do more and this is exactly the issue that supervisor farrell is addressing. i really want to signal my appreciation for his not only looking at this but diving into it and having spent considerable amount of time studying it and finding out what else we can do. while i say our past policies have been successful we have to do more. in particular when you talk with the da and our public health department and the fire department there are individuals that repeat repeatedly get picked up and sometimes too late.

sometimes, it's in death. but for the majority of time we try to safe them in their psych emergencies or they've over medicating themselves we are two came patient of a city not to be smarter. even with all the work we've done and most recently, i joined our director of health to initiate the cares initiative and move it from a pilot program of five or six individuals that got 24/7 care to a full program where we have 9 additional individuals targeting families who are gotten individuals from their care that are suffering from mental health to

transitional skewer to experts that will focus in general house to create a mental shelter, if you will, for those individuals we've initiated the cares initiative to give more care and insure is better and successful respond but even what that we need additional help. this is where supervisor farrell's research and contracts have been valuable. it's time to consider what we'll do apart from waiting for someone laura's you law can help us identify individuals that end up in death or in their highest psych go health it's the tool this sometimes our law enforcement and care shflts must

have to get to someone early it could prevent many more deaths on the street so i'm thankful particularly to amanda and rick on behalf of laura to remember what occurred in that case but also the cases that mark has security guard u suggested have happened and to many others there are many, many other stories about people on the streets we know their habit they will get some respite we'll pull them off the streets and get the hot teams with so many and at the same time hundreds of individuals will repeat and going back to their self-medication and experiencing the psych challenges they have

we've got to have better answers so we seek laura's law as a tool to help us to become even more of a convention city that's not about the money no more or the housing it really is paying attention to something we've not paid attention too again, i want to thank all the people standing behind me we hope seriously that the supervisors and board will find 6 total that will support t this but we're prepared to go to the ballot i'll support it 0 we can assure ourselves we're going everything possible for the elements for the individuals that exist on our streets that augment to have better care thank you for being here (clapping.) thank you mayor ed lee.

at this point, i want to invite up nick and amanda laura's parents that have been incredible leaders on this issue ever since that tragic day (clapping.) >> thank you. good morning can i hear me. many families live with mental illness everyday. my family was not one of them. i never thought about mental health treatment and care until 13 years ago i wish i had in january 2004 my daughter laura was murdered she was going into the nevada health you county and

someone opened up and shot her four times she was shot twice in the heart and died constantly. when the ramp package at the client 3 people laid dead and 3 injured and a you community was shaken and the world was diminished by the loss of an incredible young woman. laura was bright and beautiful at the age 19, in fact, i have a picture of her i'll show later she had kind neutrons and spirit an outstanding student in the midst of ore campaign for the student campaign where she was in college. she had a tremendous future and wanted to make a positive

difference in the world she was on her way to doing that. my life was turned pound upside down i was initially in shock. my grief was pronounced i thought my daughter would outlive me i miss her everyday. nick and i needed to somehow understand and get our mind around how we lost our daughter who did this we learned more about laura's murder his name is scott in his late 30s and had severe mental illness and rapidly doing downhill he was a guy client but missing appoint his family couldn't intervene they only hoped that nothing

would happen. scott thorp was apprehend the same day that laura was killed and he initially was incompetent to stand trial and plead guilty and found not guilty by reason of insanity. under a pencil commitment at the hospital one receives medical treatment. in some ways scott received the worse punishment improvement in his mental condition to the point that he new fully understands and rthsz what he did he has to live with that. his mental improvement and stability and insight, of course, too late for him he'll

be forever incarcerated my too late for laura. to nick and i that is totally background we wait until someone does a crime and then they get treatment we thought there was a better approach he nick will talk about the legislation that ultimately ended up with laura's law but we knew and what we wanted to work for was getting treatment green before someone deteriorates and before their imcan't before that he do harm to them or on the we thought it made sense to get it before going to jail or prison doing is not only better for individuals for all enacted by severe mental

illness we worked to pass laura's law in nevada couldn't and i'm very proud of our county that's leading the way the outcomes are fabulous they're far better than we ever envisioned and i think we can feel that due to this tragedy we indeed making a positive differences for the laura. i wish we had her back i'm glad we, do that i'll i'm going to turn it over to my husband nick and (clapping.) >> i have a lump in my troet after that.

when laura died there were 2 things we needed to find out early on the facts about what happened. we eventually find out the facts took a long time but we also needed to know why it happened and we actually came to that understanding relatively quickly that laura in a sense was a victim of a failing mental health system. my sister actually, my stepsister karen had some experience in this area her bilingual father was a brienlt traffic engineer in yale he had schizophrenia he threatened to

kill any sister and stepmother back in those days they got her eir him into treatment at valley state hospital. but she had understanding of mental health issue it's not trusting true our widower family had inform experience she understood and politically was connected heaving involved with the administration and knew lobbyists in sacramento and was able to get us in touch with assemblywoman hell con thomas and hell one was a psych nurse and sponsoring legislation at that time, called a bit 1421 the precursor of laura's law. and so in the early days we didn't know what else to do except strike back at the system

so we become involved with laura's law there were others here heavily involved randell and i give him and others huge amaze of credit. so we watched the protective active process and i'll say it is savage making, you know, it's somewhat ugly you don't want to know what's in it laura's law was like sausage making. you know what came out was whatnot what we hoped for but a step going in the right direction as we got involved we learned more about mental illness and learned mental

illness is a boom condition a chemical condition of the brain and learned that many people with severe mental illness have a condition lack of insight. those are people with severe mental illness won't seek treatment and laura's law is aimed at this population. mayor ed lee and supervisor farrell said a little bit about the law but basically laura's law allows parents and others to contact their mental health director to seek a court order to engage the client or patient and assaulted outpatient treatment. it's very interesting how laura's law works it has no real

teeth to it there's no really compulsion but laura's law does work laura's law is implemented or something similar to it in this state's and rests on the assumes that most people are law-abiding citizens and will stay engaged in treatment. it's been in nevada county mayor ed lee i think talked about the results in new york state ken raze law and laura's law is modeled after that and the results have been similar to what new york state has seen. laura's law way fully implemented in nevada county in 2008, it wasn't implemented out of the kindness of a supervisors

heart it was implemented as a result of a court settlement that we made with the nevada county. but since it's implementation there's been an enormous buy in but all facts and circumstances in nevada county they've been encouraging way beyond what we anticipated. of those referred to assaulted out patient treatment over 50 percent engage in treatment voluntarily so the com pully aspect of laura's law is not used more often than used it's important to remember through so there's a collaborative progress whereby the clients meet with the judge and through a process do engageful in treatment and

finally full treatment. in nevada county there's been documented 64 percent decline in psych hospitals there's been a 27 percent decline in incarceration for prison and a 33 percent decline in homeless days and there's been a '64 percent decline in emergency interventions. overall for every tdr spent on treatment under you assisted outpatient that's been documented one dollar and $0.84 avoided costs it clearly saves lives and money that's the com patient thing to do as mayor ed lee said.

image if san francisco implements laura's law it will have the same experience as nevada county >> thank you again to supervisor farrell and mayor ed lee we really appreciate our support this has been a long struggle but i said all the time you have two major county in one week that have come to this point and we hope it will lead to more thank you very much. >> (clapping) >> thank you to the wilcox family for coming down from nevada county and sharing your story. i want to introduce the director of our public health department barbara garcia (clapping.) good morning. i wanted to acknowledge the wilcox family thank you for your work. the department of public health has an incredible health system

we serve over thirty thousand people we looked at the political process this went through we developed a program for volunteering system in that the client what voluntarily come into the system and has a mandate treatment plan. with laura's the more important thing on the front end it allows for the family and providers and i want to acknowledge the providers who watch their patients fail and die because of the lack of compassionate treatment and they don't have the tool to mandatory the process it's important for the civil right of our plan through this process the advocacy of insuring the people have the right through this law i believe

it will and will look at the fact it those individuals and the ability of families to acknowledge the fact it is very difficult for families to acknowledge the fact they have a mentally ill child we have individual rights address protections of the information and adults don't have to share that with their families we have barriers for the providers as well as the family members to seek access for care for their family members. we believe that treatment works and people do better when they have treatment we've watched patients become active and good providers in the community we do not want people into the emergency care department but

help folks engage in treatment. in infected the department will especially up we have over one dozen years of experience this will be a critic court means and we have the means to work with the court system as well as to immediately set up an assisted treatment and we have the state support for funding to make sure this passes and i know the city will also support any services. i look forward to working with the community and the advocates to make sure we work through the process and that we try to bring this program to fruition to make sure that more people have access through the treatment and more family members and the providers have the ability to take care of their family

members and patients thank you very much (clapping) >> thank you director garcia at this point, i'd like to call up director joann associate professor and a physician at psych emergency service and for case management and has 20 years of experience at sf general dr. ralph (clapping). >> thank you supervisors. that's very kind i wish it were only 20 years it's more like 35 (laughter) >> so as you heard from our director barbara garcia san francisco's behavorial system officers thirty thousand san franciscans every year mostly volunteer treatment from prevention through crisis with

goals of wellness and recovery this includes the thirty thousand includes 73 hundred that visits psych care every year a that's the severely and chronically schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. decades ago those are people that would have been locked up for years and years, however, thanks to improvements in treatment reform the commitment laws and the doctrine of the laeftd restrictive they've been treated in our outpatient treatment unfortunately, that leafs behind a small number of patients they k3467b9 refuse treatment and others demonstrate

success often several years at that time, but not able to stay in the treatment not recognize or remember they have a chronic illnesses oftentimes after a year of or two of treatment they don't need it and stop seeing the treatment team and go off the treatment and start to deteriorate the next step they have their families and friends trying to get them back this only end when the police arrest them on the 5150 or harming themselves or others do i hear a motion to approve the minutes at that point in time at that point, they become homeless and typically require treatment to

restables. this insight is not a character trait or a political opinion such patients see it in other people not themselves it's not a deficit of intelligence we've treated severely chronic will i ill people that have degrees in psychy. this reflects a problem. which is just greek for no knowledge of the disease and not understand the deficit of a minldz and it is seen when a person has a paddlers arm and seen in dementia and agreeing schizophrenia it represents

deterioration. but the important thing once we recognize this way to we can structure the damage. laura's law is an outpatient treatment designed for two inteenlz to do if number one external support and motivation to the patient internal essence of maflgs when a judge says you need to do this that makes is an expression the second is if the motivation fails the treatment team will be enabled and the family to intervention in a patient drops out of treatment if caught