i oppose this law and i hope you do not move forward with it. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> hello, my name is kelly cutler and i am a voluntary at coalition of homelessness, a social worker, and i have been working with the homeless population in our city for a number of years, especially homeless youths and young adults. and i am opposed to laura's law. as a case manager i was consistently tasked with the challenge of connecting youth with social services to meet their needs. they wanted treatment, there were so many time and time again that wanted treatment, and it was an impossible task. i was constantly told that they were, you know, too ill, that they didn't have the services available. laura's law is to implement mandatory outpatient treatment. you see

the problem with this when speaking about the homeless population. outpatient, housing is an important part of that. you are tasking social workers and service providers with an impossible task because we don't have the services available. look at the research. it shows that the housing first model with supportive services works. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, jennifer friedmont, director of the coalition of homelessness. this is a painful hearing. it's painful for the family members who have been going through it and are *urpb unable to get their adult children services. it's painful for the service providers and it's most people for the people

who have been experiencing mental illness and can't get responsive treatment. we have a mental health system that is in crisis. we have reduced services dramatically. in the public health system between 2007 and 2012, behavioral health services were reduced by $40 million. this has had a dramatic impact. it's had a dramatic impact on everyone in san francisco. we can look around and see it. what our response should be to this crisis for everybody in this room is to rapidly rebuild our system so it actually has the capacity to respond to the diverse needs of san franciscoans with mental illnesses. ab 1421 creates, from our perspective, a new bureaucratic court process that certainly is not the same as a solution. we also believe that most family members who support this, support it because they see it as a means of getting their kids into

services. that if the court orders it, the city has, the city has to provide it. they don't have a choice. so there's -- and in truth as has been mentioned, the data shows there's been no difference, the court order makes no difference in outcomes. there's a simple solution here. let's take out the court process and move forward with this. you know, the last thing we would like to see is this go to the ballot, we think it would be irresponsible, we think it would be really hateful towards people with mental illness so we want to challenge everyone, especially supervisor farrell, to do the right thing. >> next speaker please. >> hello, i am virginia lewis, i am a licensed clinical social worker in private practice for 25 years, and i have worked with bipolar and depressed clients. i am a member of the san

francisco health board, i am a member of nami and was chair of the san francisco night ministry. i presently conduct a parent support group for nami and i am in contact with many parents and relatives of persons with serious chronic mental illness. i am also the mother of a bipolar child and i am speaking today primarily as a parent in support of laura's law. i want to make it clear that my daughter has given me permission to speak about her. i believe this is important because one reason so few of us parents are willing to speak publicly is because we are protecting our children and families from stigma. presently my daughter is stable on her medications for a year and doing well. however, there are no guarantees going forward that this will continue. we have discussed laura's law and

she told me that she wishes that the laura's law option had been available to us in the past when as a family we dealt with tragic and horrific situations due to her serious mental illness. during these times there were almost no effective services available to her in san francisco in either the public or the private sector. the laura's law program provides a pathway for parents to obtain help before events spiral downward and it becomes necessary to avoid violence to avoid law enforcement. it would be the only such real option available to families and friends of seriously mentally ill people in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. let me call a few more speaker cards (calling names).

. >> good mornings, supervisors, my name is kevin carroll, president of the hotel association of san francisco. a recent report featured in usa today found more than half a million americans are falling through the cracks of mental health service systems. we see many of these individuals daily, struggling. laura's law is an effective tool that provides community-based outpatient treatment. it also helps empower families to help their loved ones get treated. it would improve safety for our residents and visitors by treating patients with a history of violence. it will also reduce costs by reducing

hospitalization and incarceration costs that are incurred now. you have already heard testimony from nevada county that it helped save money and that money could be used for resources as well. we encourage you to move this forward to the full board of supervisors. thank you for your time. >> next speaker, please. >> committee, margie english from st. vincent de paul society here today. here to speak in support of laura's law. under our roof we do many things and i'm in partnership with many of the people in this room and i feel the emotion. one of the programs we run is the largest homeless shelter in northern california and within that shelter, though, is a drop-in resource center and that is the eye of the storm here in san francisco for some critical

incidents that all your first responders talk about. at the society we make anest to treat everyone with compassion, dignity and social justice. my employees would never be here to speak up. they meet people where they are. we also run a recovery program which mimics what the fsa and bob bennett was saying earlier. it's complicated, the fact that i'm here. the amendments that were brought out really improve the implementation. i do see violence and safety a critical component of why this should move forward. reading our incidents reports it is very -- they are very difficult to read and that's why i chose to speak up about this. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors, thank you for taking up this

important law. laura's law fills the cracks to get treatment for those who are severely mentally ill, not able to ask for help themselves, but do not meet criteria for conservatorship. it will help people before they fall into the criminal justice system and i urge you to pass this law before it becomes more complicated by going on the ballot. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker please. >> good afternoon, each and every one of you. my name is michelle moncrief and i'm also a consumer. and my biggest fears about laura's law, ab 1421, is stigma, discrimination

and forced treatment. i don't want to get down and tell you all of my story, but i am a consumer and today and the last 15 years i've been a provider in mental health. we do get better. i was not forced into treatment, i voluntarily went into treatment and i'm doing a lot better today. i would hate to see this law come in to form because one of the things that still goes on in the united states is stigma and profiling. and i'd like to read this before i go, really briefly. african americans are almost 5 times as likely to be recipients of forced treatment orders. hispanic people are too and

twice as likely as white people to be the recipient of forced treatment. people with no history of hurting people are the primary recipients of this order. please do not let this pass. thank you for allowing me to share. >> thank you, next speaker please (calling names). >> supervisors, thank you so much for allowing me to speak. my name is thea cruz. i sat in another room watching this hearing waiting for my item to be closed and was outraged. 11 years ago you would not know me as the high functioning activist i am today

because i sat hospitalized, drooling, unable to find the clothes that i wanted when i finally got released from hospitalization. there is a reason why people with bipolar disorder are not sent to treatment to be tied down and medicated. it's because we have rights as individuals to choose what happens to our to our own bodies had i been forced to take the drugs they wanted me to work, i would not have been released and i would not be here today. i had an opportunity to seek treatment on my own terms and get my self straight.

this is disgusting. to see white man after white man telling people of color what they are supposed to do with their lives, court mandated is outrageous. i tell you to please do not let this pass. please protect the people that are here that have no voice, people that are stigmatized day in and day out. please do not. (applause). >> next speaker please. >> good morning, is it still morning? members of the board of supervisors, my name is steven marks and i am a family member , four generations of people with mental health challenges, disorders and so on. i have sympathy for family members here, parents who want to save their children. however i want to urge everyone in this room to consider not just the trauma of

having a mental health challenge and being on the street but the challenge of being placed involuntarily in a treatment situation, i have seen it happen to members of my family, i have experienced it myself and it is very traumatic. so often people, the recidivism that i have seen in my life from those around me anecdotally and also professionally has been caused not by the lack of treatment but by mistreatment, treatments that, well-meaning treatment that was not geared toward the actual need. so i am opposed, as you can tell, to ab 1421 and i urge the board to not pass on this legislation. cost savings was mentioned. now, peer services, services of people like myself to have had lived experiences, who can use this peer experience, lived experience, in the service that

they provide certified services, people who will be trained in the same kind of work that we're talking about being done here, the cost savings would be tremendous if this burden were not placed on clinicians. and i really value the frustration, my heart goes out to the clinicians, providers who have experienced this frustration. my father was a clinician, i have a doctorate in psychology myself. but i find that peers, peers providing services, working in conjunction with clinicians provide a much more holistic and a much more valuable service than it would be to implement this law. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. i have two more cards, richard springwater and michael gauss >> good morning, supervisors, my name is gillian crowan, i am a mental health specialist. forced treatment

does not work. 8 years ago my family gave me an ultimatum that was as close to involuntary commitment as you can come. one week later i made a decision on my own that i was ready for recovery and to participate in treatment. i participated in intensive treatment for one year. today i still live with bipolar disorder, i work and lead a healthy and fulfilling life. i urge the committee to oppose ab 1421. >> thank you, i'm going to read a couple more names (calling names) next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors,

my name is girford boyd smith, i am the head of nami, practicing physician and family member. we've got to keep in mind this is for a very small subset of mentally ill. neither the folks that are cycling through the er's, lock edwards and sometimes cycling in and out of the jails. you've heard the frustration from police chief sur, of a police officer on the street picking someone up because they are a danger to themselves or others, finally delivering them to a treatment regimen perhaps at san francisco general, only to find them back on the street in the same condition the following week. we've got an obligation to take care of these folks. this is a city with hopefully strong social values and we really need to come up with a better treatment system than what is currently in place.

when court mandate of a treatment plan comes out of a laura's law hearing, the onus is on the providers, this is a completely different shift to have a case management program to actively go after someone who fails an appointment or skips a medication date and that's the key transfer of responsibility that's happening to otherwise folks who have no naubl (inaudible) and who don't have the ability to keep their medications going. it's absolutely cost effective. case management is certainly a whole lot cheaper of revolving door of time in jail or time in a locked ward. so i think we want to do the right thing here and help these folked who are otherwise at risk. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker.

>> hello, my name is anna baker guiterrez, thank you for being here. i'd like you to see this and i'd like you to see this here. patient treatment, we want patient friendly treatment and local providers and effective services. the most effective treatment is the one given in partnership with peer support with the person knowledge of what they are having and taking and what they are choosing. say yes to self-controlled treatment medication psychotherapy and

respite choices. think physical illness versus mental illness, why incarcerate the mentally ill? it's a great tool. laura's law is a great tool for discriminating and criminalizing of the most vulnerable. it is not funny. i wish you would really think about it and support self-treatment and noncriminalization of the most vulnerable. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors, my name is randell hager and i represent the california psychiatric association, i am their director of government affairs and i am here on behalf of psychiatrists who work and live in san

francisco. i am also a person who during a 6 week period sat down with the assembly health committee staff and drafted this bill and i can tell you there's two things i would like to know if i were you about this bill. there is no program that exists that has more due process protections. what has not been mentioned today is the judges, they are not to commit someone necessarily but to protect them. all those many pages of legal requirements are there as protections and there are more protections more protective than those in laura's law. also we chose a model that was most effective that we could find after about two years of research, so the assisted outpatient concept is a proven concept, there is data to support it, it can do wonderful things. it is for a limited population and i guess i'd just like to leave you with the fact that psychiatrists often find people when they are the sickest.

they often work in hospital setings and they see people at the very end of a long road of unfortunate events and laura's law can help intervene and stop people from traveling that road and we commend this to you and hope that you can refer this to the full board of supervisors. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors, my name is michael gos s, director of the mental health association of san francisco. i'd like to ask people to rise with me in dignity, rise with me in opposition of laura's law. i am a man, a single father, the manager, i have also dealt with serious depression and recovered. this law scapegoats those of us who have dealt with mental illness and mental health conditions. there are many other avenues, over 36 of them in the mayor's mental health task force, that we could have

gone the route of. we can still come to consensus and the family members as well. i am asking you all to stand in dignity and in opposition to ab 1421. >> good morning, supervisors, (inaudible) also a consumer mental health service center. i am here to oppose ab 1421 including with the amendments unless we take the forced treatment out and let me turn around so you can see how beautiful the shirt is. it says force is the opposite of treatment and we know this, we have been doing myself 20 years working with the severely mentally ill who

are homeless. i am appalled the institute is going against its own rules. the hearing its several has been traumatizing to some of us when you see the police officer association, everybody who really wants to see more money for the courts instead of more money directly for our people, we need to say we need to oppose the forced treatment part of this legislation. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors, my name is george bakavida, i am a physician psychiatrist and i have practiced here in the city for 20 years. i am vice president of the mission neighborhood health center and we have no --

or i personally have no skin in the game. i am not financially rewarded one way or the other. my point here today is to discuss two issues. one, laura's law is going to effect primarily persons with severe schizophrenia. now, the concept of schizophrenia have changed. schizophrenia isn't caused by bad parenting. you can't blame mom any more. unfortunately our laws are still predicated on these old discredited theories. schizophrenia, that is the illness that is going to be primarily addressed by laura's law, the serious schizophrenic, is a neurocognitive disorder. it's from disordered cognitive in the brain such as shrinkage of the brain. it is more on a continuum with mental illness

and is more akin to alzheimer's than it is to ordinary depression. symptoms of the illness, such as delusions that occur in a patient within another age group are not a serious barrier to care. for psychiatric patients this is a total baifrier to care. to deny schizophrenics a right to care because of delusions because they can't seek care is inconsistent with established policy vis-a-vis other dementias. it has been painful for me to have to tell patients that your son has to hit you or you have to put him on the street and make him homeless if you are going to get care. we need a modern version of the mental health cares. if i may be so bold to say in your suggestion about having a psychiatrist,

forensic psychologist --. >> thanks. thank you. >> (inaudible). >> thank you very much, next speaker please. a few other speaker cards, we're getting toward the end here. lisa marie, julian plumbador. >> i want to appreciate the opportunity to speak here. i am a psychiatrist, i've been in practice since the mid-60's. in those days we had state hospitals and i actually supported the closing of the state hospital. but today without our state hospitals what we really come up with was a large increase in homeless population and the large increase in the criminal justice of mentally ill. america's statistics are unbelievable the number that we have in the criminal justice system of the mentally ill. and my biggest concern is that

people who are mentally ill that are in our criminal justice system. i can certainly understand people who are really -- my heart goes out for them -- who are against the forced treatment, but i think their hearts go out for their mentally ill friend who are now being incarcerated. i think, we talk about we need more services but when we think if you incarcerate someone for one year it's $50,000 and if we could reduce the incarceration rate we would have much more money for the treatment of the mentally ill. so i urge you, i think laura's law, we do need to reduce the number of incarcerations, reduce the number of people who are on our streets and i think it will be an important step in that direction. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker

please. >> chairman yee, supervisors, neither the lchb or ecs have taken a formal position on laura's law so i'm here to speak for myself. i support laura's law because i believe assisted outpatient treatment can be a useful tool when a patient demonstrates symptoms of severe mental illness and resists treatment. the results in new york state from kendra's law show they get better outcomes. the majority of homeless people are not severely mentally ill. laura's law is

designed to address the needs of a small number of severely ill revolving door patients who meet the extensive criteria presented in the law. i respect the views of those who believe laura's law has the potential to violate due process but i do not agree with them. it has no enforcement mechanism when the patient chooses not to comply with treatment. failure to comply with aot is not a basis for involuntary commitment. there's no question if laura's law goes to the ballot it will pass overwhelmingly and for all the wrong reasons. i think a public discussion of this issue will be devicive. i thank supervisor campos for his moral courage in supporting this law. although it is not on today's agenda, i urge the board to continue to create more supportive housin.