Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2018)
Street Roots • Oct. 12-18, 2018 News COMMITTED, fro m page 4 don’t have to worry about freezing to death. frostbite. This time, she was taken to S t We can’t say, ‘This person is scrounging for Vincent Hospital and finally stabilized. behind. food in the garbage can, and that’s bad,’” he “It was a great Christmas present,” said Once at the top of her class, Cathy was a said. “As terrible as that is, the courts really DelaCruz. Her sister now lives in a graduate of Southern Oregon University residential facility in southern Oregon and look at that and say, ‘Are they ill from that? School of Education and a talented pianist, Can you prove that’s endangering their well hasn’t returned to the streets since. singer and guitar player. She wanted to work being?’ You would have to then prove But not everyone gets the help they need. as an elementary school teacher, but her life Some have no family looking out for them, someone is getting sick on a regular basis changed when she began to show signs of and others have died despite their family’s from eating bad food. It is that high level schizophrenia in her mid-20s. There were that we have to go for when we’re talking best efforts to save them. ups and downs, but since the mid-1990s she Josephine County judge Pat Wolke points about basic needs.” had remained relatively stable and on her to Karen Batts, a 52-year-dld woman Local efforts to amend civil commitment medication. She married and moved to suffering from schizophrenia who died of and mandated treatment statutes will likely Arizona in 2004. About 10 years later, she hypothermia in a downtown Portland converge with similar efforts taking place in moved back to Oregon, but her medical care parking garage last year despite her family’s Salem as Oregon heads into the upcoming didn’t transition well. ongoing attempts to get her into a hospital. legislative session. “She fell through the cracks,” said Wolke’s jurisdiction is one of two in the A Senate Judiciary workgroup has drafted DelaCruz. For the next few years she. legislation that would state to implement watched her sister cycle in and out of assisted outpatient lower the threshold for hospitals, never getting back to a point of treatment programming, civil commitment, stability and eventually becoming homeless. which allows the court to allowing a judge to take a Twice, said DelaCruz, a cab dropped person’s past behavior yon are g oing to try to order someone into out Cathy off in Old Town after «he was into account and extend compel people in to treat*« patient mental health discharged from Cedar Hills Hospital treatment. the potential for danger m eat on an o ntpatient without any medication or coat and nowhere “Assisted outpatient to themselves or others to go. Her family would get her checked into treatment is sort of like to the next 30 or 90 days basis, yo n also need to motels and shelters, but inevitably, she mental health court for rather than requiring that o ile r bousing w ith those would become aggressive or destructive and the danger be imminent services« X th in k someone people who don’t commit get kicked out crimes,” he said. She had a religious fixation, and was often If a person’s deteriorating w ould need at least three But Wolke said the condition will likely be a months in a place th a t lost in incoherent conversations with spirits statute governing the graver danger if they that she said were bringing her messages. was stable to get th e ir program is flawed. There continue without help, She would urinate on the floor and verbally feet nnder th e m ." are no consequences for and if that person has attack just about anyone. She became caused themselves harm It - - B IL L OSBORNE not complying and the paranoid that her family was trying to send in the past, the judge M E N T A L H E A L T H C O U R T A N D C iV IL court cannot order that a her back to a psychiatric hospital, and she C O M M IT M E N T S FO R M U L T N O M A H person take their could take that COUNTY refused to get treatment medication. Additionally, information into During her last downward spiral, she was when the legislation was consideration when in fier dOs and sleeping outdoors. She had passed, it didn’t come deciding whether or not lost all her teeth and contacted family only with any funding to to commit them or when she needed money. As temperatures support it. mandate that they accept dropped in September 2017, DelaCruz began Wolke’s been heading up the legislative mental health treatment. to call the Multnomah County Crisis Line workgroup in Salem. Before the group Another bill the workgroup drafted about twice a week with her sister’s decided to focus on lowering the bar for civil increases the number of days a person can location, telling operators Cathy needed commitment, it discussed making some be detained while waiting for a civil help and couldn’t survive on the streets changes to Oregon’s assisted outpatient commitment hearing from five to 15. This much longer. treatment statute so that it could be more would give investigators such as Osborne Each time, DelaCruz would receive a effective and wider in use. more time to put together a case. He follow-up call, often from a police officer, The workgroup, overseen by Senate currently has about three days to get telling her that while they agreed it’s Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Floyd witnesses and evidence lined up in order to obvious that her sister needs help, they had Prozanski (D-Eugene), comprises get the hearing scheduled by the fifth no legal grounds to intervene. stakeholders including mental health judicial day, he said. advocates, attorneys, ACLU of Oregon and In 2017, Osborne’s team of 13 investigators conducted 3,200 investigations. Oregon Health Authority. “We’ve resisted doing anything related to “Out of those investigations,” he said, “we AOT (assisted outpatient treatment) in that typically will take on average 8 to 10 percent U T f you look at the statute that we work workgroup because of really significant of those folks to civil commitment hearing. JLunder, it seems fairly vague,” said opposition, by ourselves and others,” said Out of them, we get about 90 percent civilly Osborne. In his work with Multnomah Kimberly McCullough, policy director at committed.” County courts, he oversees investigations Extending the hold period from five to 15 ACLU of Oregon. for civil commitments. She said mental health resources aren’t days may also lead to fewer commitments State statute allows the psychiatric available in a timely matter - or at all - for because it gives the patient more time to commitment of a person who is a danger to Oregonians who seek treatment voluntarily. become stabilized. themselves or others, or who is not able to And, she said she thinks providers could try meet their basic needs. It would seem that more creative ways of reaching people who someone like Cathy would meet this need help before taking away a person’s civil definition, but Osborne said over the years, liberties and mandating that they take appellate courts have significantly narrowed medication. or DelaCruz, calling the authorities the criteria. “Assisted outpatient treatment is only as twice a week in a futile attempt to get A person has to be in the observable her sister help continued for four months good as the resources that are available,” process of gravely harming themselves or said Lane County public defender Allison and well into the winter. Then one night in others to be considered - many behaviors Knight, who has also been involved with the late December, DelaCruz’s nephew found that demonstrate a person is extremely sick, workgroup. And outside of Multnomah her sister sleeping on a wet sidewalk in while concerning, do not qualify them for County, she said, the resources just aren’t Hillsboro. This time when they called the commitment there. , crisis line, Cathy fled wearing no shoes. It “That burden becomes higher and harder “Our general position is that community was this small detail that showed she was to prove when it’s nice weather out,” said mental health services have been posing an immediate danger to herself - it Osborne. chronically underfunded,” said Bob was the middle of winter and she could get “Because people can live outside, and you F Page 5 Joondeph, director at Disability Rights Oregon. He’s also opposed changes proposed in the workgroup. Joondeph said while he wants to see people get the services they need, he has concerns about going back to the days of warehousing people. “Treatment should be determined between a patient and a physician,” he said, “and the courts are not well-suited to make medical decisions for anybody.” udge Waller and several workgroup members are traveling to Ohio next week to learn more about the mandated outpatient treatment programs that have been operating in that state for a decade. One program they’ll visit is run by Judge Elinore Stormer in Akron’s Summit County. Stormer said in Ohio, if a person is pretty sick, they will.meet Ohio’s criteria for mandated treatment. That state’s mandated treatment programs also come with consequences. She said she tells participants that if they take their medication, then they won’t have to go to the hospital - an incentive that she said works. She also has other means of helping patients comply. “I have a guy who is a bipolar meth user, and I have a crisis officer who takes him to go get his shot,” she said. “I can also take you from my courtroom to hospital.” As of late September, 217 people in her courtroom had been mandated into outpatient treatment Of those, just 12 have been referred back, and 99 are still participating in their treatment programs. She said most people come before her bench after they’re released from the state hospital. While family members could refer a loved one to mandated outpatient treatment, it hasn’t happened. She said families typically wait until the person is so sick they need hospitalization because they don’t want to upset them. “Our model is one that’s easily replicable, but tailored to fit your community,” she said. “It relies on already existing programs and procedures, but links them in a different way.” She said that makes it relatively inexpensive to operate - especially when the alternative is a costly stay in the state hospital. Waller said she’s interested to see how Ohio courts are balancing the need for treatment with a person’s civil liberties and whether it seems like a program that could work locally. While it’s unknown how any of these bills - will fare during this upcoming legislative session, it would seem that unless the bar for civil commitment is lowered and more resources are dedicated to getting people with mental illness into housing and healthcare, little is likely to change on the streets of downtown Portland. Street Roots will continue to follow the progress of these efforts as Oregon heads into the 2019 session. J emily@streetroots. org Twitter @greenwrites
