The Brief

A highly anticipated — and controversial — new program, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will begin in Los Angeles County on Dec. 1. It’s called CARE Court and will allow family members to ask a judge to step in with a treatment plan for loved ones living with severe and untreated mental illness.

The basics of CARE Court: People living with a serious and untreated mental illness, like schizophrenia, could be referred for a court-ordered, voluntary care plan that could last up to two years. The petition could be filed by people including county behavioral health workers, first responders or family members.

“I would have had my petition by the first day,” Mike Estrada said from his home in Berkeley.

A feeling that the process is ‘a constant slap in the face’ 

For years, Estrada struggled to get help for his mother, Josie Estrada, who lived with schizoaffective disorder. The experience exasperated him so much that in 2020 he produced a one-hour documentary on her story, Benevolent Neglect.

The film is sprinkled with grainy family footage and stills of Josie’s life in California’s Central Valley. Estrada points out that his mother was “adored by the family.”

The documentary also includes videos shot on Estrada’s cellphone during some of Josie’s more difficult moments.

“In 2007, my mom began experiencing hallucinations. During acute episodes, she’d hear people inside the house,” Estrada tells the camera.

Estrada said the voices would tell his mother not to take her psychiatric medications. For more than a year, Josie lived out of her car after her erratic behavior got her evicted from her apartment. Time and time again, Estrada would plead with first responders to hospitalize her.

Often the people who were supposed to help would be hamstrung by a lack of psychiatric beds and what Estrada sees as overly strict criteria for hospitalizing someone against their will.

“As a family it’s just a constant slap in the face. Constant disrespect. In the meantime, our loved one is suffering, deteriorating before our eyes,” Estrada said.

His mother died in 2019, but he’s hopeful CARE Court will give families like his more leverage to get help.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaking in March 2022 with local mental health service providers and officials about CARE Court.

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Officials report an ‘unprecedented demand’ 

There are concerns, however, about whether the county’s behavioral health care system will have enough staff to meet the need.

In June, L.A. County supervisors voted to expedite hiring for CARE Court.

“In order to meet a variety of our expectations, including CARE Court — we’re focused on setting up the court infrastructure — the point is the judge will have to have a place to send that individual,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said during the board meeting.

“I think the supervisors were right to be concerned about what kind of infrastructure is in place,” Dr. Lisa Wong, director of the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, told LAist.

“We’ve been having this unprecedented demand for mental health services in our system, so we know that the system is stretched. And we know that with CARE Court, we’re going to be working with some really high acuity individuals,” Wong added.

Wong said hiring has improved this year, but it’s still a major stress point as the county works to bring thousands more behavioral health beds online. And, Wong points out, the initial petition is just the beginning.

“What happens when that person has to go into treatment and how do we keep them engaged?” she said.

Defense attorneys' role

Some of that help will come from the new Independent Defense Counsel Office, which is separate from but administered by the Public Defender’s Office.

A new panel of about 50 specially selected attorneys will work with an estimated 1,900 respondents within the first six months of CARE Court.

“It will not only be there to represent the client’s legal interests and protect their civil liberties, but also to serve as a facilitator and an encourager and a supporter throughout the treatment program,” said Marco Saenz, Independent Defense Counsel program director.

He said those lawyers might encourage respondents to follow through with treatment, but they’ll also work to hold the behavioral health system accountable in providing services.

But the success of CARE Court will ultimately hinge on the participant

“Under the statute, the respondent can walk away at any time,” Saenz told LAist. “It’s completely voluntary. How that will work, we will see.”

Coercion or voluntary? 

CARE Court may be voluntary, but civil liberties groups continue to warn about stripping of individual rights.

If the care plan fails, the person could be hospitalized or referred to a conservatorship. That could mean forced treatment down the line.

Some 40 groups including JusticeLA, Disability Rights California and ACLU California Action signed a letter in 2022 opposing CARE Court. It reads, in part, that the plan is: “a system of coerced, court-ordered treatment that strips people with mental health disabilities of their right to make their own decisions about their lives.”

Mike Estrada would have been OK with conservatorship for his mother.

“I wanted her to have some chance of building her life back. And there was no way it was going to happen without her being stabilized,” Estrada said.

Mike and Josie Estrada.

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Courtest Mike Estrada

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There are also continued concerns about whether the public guardians’ offices throughout the state will be able to handle the potential increased conservatorship caseload. Public guardians' offices are responsible for guiding care for people who are deemed unable to do so themselves because of a serious mental illness.

“Everybody keeps saying, ‘We need facilities, we need facilities, there’s no room at the inn.’ And that’s true. If you talk to my members throughout the state, they are struggling to find placements,” said Tom Scott, executive director of the California State Association of Public Administrators, Public Guardians, Public Conservators.

What's next

As CARE Court continues to roll out across the state, Estrada wants families like his to be allowed input in the process. And he wants to see counties held accountable for making it work.

Some counties, including San Diego, San Francisco and Orange County have a head start on L.A., because their CARE Court efforts launched in October.

According to California Health and Human Services, as of early November, there were a total of 80 CARE Court petitions statewide.

Saenz said the case volume in some places outside of L.A. County has been lower than what was anticipated.

But as a nearly 30-year veteran public defender who has represented “innumerous” clients living with mental illness, Saenz said he’s holding out hope that CARE Court will be able to help a population that is not generally reached.

“It’s another tool in our toolbox, and to the extent that we’re participants in it ... we’re going to be there to be supportive in any way we can,” Saenz said.

“But time will tell.”

Nithya Raman turned the tide in the L.A. mayoral race by winning over large swathes of the city that voted for Karen Bass in 2022, according to an LAist analysis of election data.

Bass was a favorite in many areas that voted for Rick Caruso when she faced him in 2022. She held onto a majority of voters across South L.A., but lost much of her previous support.

The switchup came after Bass — a veteran in progressive politics — took a relatively-conservative approach on issues like policing and high-density housing developments compared to Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority told its employees Friday to stop work, shut down their computers and stay off agency systems while it looked into “a potential security issue affecting our systems,” its chief executive confirmed to LAist.

That shutdown order was still in place Monday evening, according to a LAHSA official not authorized to speak on the record.

Gita O'Neill, the agency’s interim CEO, told LAist on Friday evening that the agency did not “yet have enough information to say definitively whether any sensitive or confidential personal information was accessed.”

She has not answered questions about whether or not services for unhoused people are disrupted.

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of LAHSA, speaks ahead of the annual homeless count on Jan. 20, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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LAHSA holds highly sensitive information collected from people experiencing homelessness in the region. The agency oversees the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, which includes unhoused people’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and disabilities, as well as self-reported mental health and substance abuse history, income sources and domestic violence history.

In a statement Monday, LAHSA said it had taken its internal computer systems offline “as a precaution” and “engaged outside cybersecurity specialists to investigate the nature and scope of the incident.” The statement, sent on O'Neill's behalf by outside public relations strategist Trevor Daley, continued to call it “a potential cybersecurity incident.”

The agency is “taking steps to maintain essential operations,” the statement added, saying LAHSA “remains open” while the investigation continues. It said the agency is working with its technical and legal teams.

What staff were told

Friday’s email to "Team LAHSA" carried the subject line "URGENT: Log Off and Shut Down for the Week." LAist obtained a copy, and O'Neill confirmed by text message that she had sent it.

“As a precaution while we look into a potential security issue affecting our systems, we're asking all staff to stop work and take their machines offline for the remainder of today and through the weekend,” the email said.

It told employees to “Log off and shut down your LAHSA computer” and not to log back in or connect to LAHSA systems, including email, “until you receive an all-clear from us.”

The email also told staff to report anything “unusual” before shutting down, such as “files renaming on their own, unexpected pop-ups or messages.”

What LAHSA leadership has said

In a texted response to LAist on Friday evening, O'Neill said she asked staff to take their computers offline “out of an abundance of caution” while the agency’s IT team assessed the situation.

“Our IT team is actively reviewing the situation now and working to understand exactly what occurred and whether any information was affected,” she wrote. “Protecting people’s personal and confidential information is a top priority in that review.”

Leaders of three LAHSA-funded service providers told LAist on Monday afternoon that they had not received any communications from LAHSA about the potential cybersecurity issue. All three use the HMIS system that holds unhoused people’s personal details.

Previous attacks against another LA housing agency

Another L.A. housing agency was previously hit by cyberattacks. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles — a separate agency known as HACLA — has said hackers got inside its network in 2022 and may have accessed people’s names, Social Security numbers, financial accounts numbers and medical information.

Two years later, HACLA was breached again, according to an official notice, with hackers potentially accessing names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and phone numbers.

LAist reporter Aaron Schrank contributed reporting to this story.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced Monday that she is running to be the county’s first elected chief executive. Horvath is the only candidate so far to enter the race, which is set for 2028.

The new executive post will take the place of the county’s appointed CEO and implement key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors. The executive will oversee the county budget, which is currently roughly $50 billion, and labor relations with more than 100,000 employees.

Horvath was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2022 and was re-elected in June to another four-year term. She represents the county’s 3rd District, which covers the San Fernando Valley and parts of the Westside and Central Los Angeles. She is a former mayor of West Hollywood.

The supervisor made her announcement Monday via social media and her campaign website. She called the race a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

The backstory

Voters created the position in 2024 when they approved Measure G, which was proposed by Supervisors Horvath and Janice Hahn.

Among other changes, the measure allowed the Board of Supervisors to expand from five to nine members by 2030 and established an independent Ethics Commission, which held its first meeting last month.

The pushback

On Monday, Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement saying she believed it was “premature” to campaign for the new county executive position when it remained unclear whether “the office itself is constitutional.”

Barger pointed to questions raised by former federal judge Stephen Larson about whether California’s Constitution allows an elected county executive to veto board decisions, control county contracts and take on powers state law currently gives the Board of Supervisors.

“Moving forward with an office that would fundamentally change how Los Angeles County is governed, without first resolving these questions, is putting the cart before the horse,” Barger said in her statement. “We need clarity.”

The primary election is scheduled for March 7, 2028.