SB 28: Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) court program.

Official summary

Legislative Counsel’s Digest (official, as of the latest version). Written by nonpartisan legislative staff; reproduced verbatim.

(1)Existing law, the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act (the act), authorizes specified persons, including a person with whom the respondent resides, family members, and first responders, among others, to petition a civil court to create a voluntary CARE agreement or a court-ordered CARE plan and implement services, to be provided by county behavioral health agencies, to provide behavioral health care, including stabilization medication, housing, and other enumerated services, to adults who are currently experiencing a severe mental illness and have a diagnosis identified in the disorder class schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and who meet other specified criteria.

Existing law, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, authorizes a conservator of the person, of the estate, or of the person and the estate to be appointed for a person who is gravely disabled as a result of a mental health disorder or impairment by chronic alcoholism. Existing law requires the officer providing the conservatorship investigation, which may include a public guardian or a county mental health program, to investigate all available alternatives to conservatorship and to recommend conservatorship to the court only if no suitable alternatives are available. Existing law requires a conservatorship under these provisions to terminate after one year and specifies procedures if the conservator determines conservatorship is still required.

This bill would authorize a conservator to, upon the termination of a conservatorship, request the court refer the conservatee to CARE court, as specified.

(2)The act authorizes services and supports to be provided to adults who are currently experiencing a qualifying severe mental illness and who meet other specified criteria, including that the person is not clinically stabilized in ongoing voluntary treatment and is either unlikely to survive safely in the community without ongoing supervision and the person’s condition is substantially deteriorating or the person is in need of services and supports to prevent a relapse or deterioration that would likely result in grave disability or serious harm to the person or others.

This bill would authorize the court, beginning July 1, 2028, and if it dismisses a CARE petition because a respondent needs a higher level of services, to order the county to develop an exit plan for the respondent. The bill would require the State Department of Health Care Services, by July 1, 2028, to develop, with input from certain stakeholder groups, a CARE Act model exit plan that identifies appropriate services and ongoing monitoring of an individual with a petition dismissed because the individual needed a higher level of services.

This bill would update the definition of a petitioner for the purposes of the act.

Sponsors

Sponsors by party (alphabetical): Democratic 2

“Support” is shown only as formal sponsorship recorded by the legislature. Roll-call votes are available on the official bill page.

Recent official actions

1. August 13, 2026August 13 hearing: Held in committee and under submission.
2. August 5, 2026August 5 set for first hearing. Placed on suspense file.
3. July 2, 2026Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on APPR.
4. July 1, 2026From committee: Do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 11. Noes 0.) (June 30).
5. June 25, 2026Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on JUD.
6. June 24, 2026From committee: Do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on JUD. (Ayes 14. Noes 0.) (June 23).
7. June 15, 2026Re-referred to Coms. on HEALTH and JUD. pursuant to Assembly Rule 96.
8. June 11, 2026From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on PUB. S.
9. July 15, 2025July 15 hearing postponed by committee.
10. June 17, 2025June 17 set for first hearing canceled at the request of author.
11. June 5, 2025Referred to Com. on PUB. S.
12. May 29, 2025In Assembly. Read first time. Held at Desk.