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Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed a major victory for his signature mental health court on Thursday, but critics say his math appears more than a little fuzzy.
Posting on X, Newsom wrote the CARE Court program “has now helped 10,000+ Californians get the lifesaving support and care they need and deserve – reaching (his administration’s) goal of 7,000 to 12,000 ‘initially served.’”
The administration’s most recent data on the program, which Newsom introduced with much fanfare in March of 2022, says CARE Court has reached just 1,470 people with treatment agreements or plans as of June. The data describes an additional 4,887 people who didn’t receive a formal CARE agreement or plan, but ended up getting services outside of the program. CARE is short for Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court.
The number of people included in treatment agreements or plans continues to fall far short of the administration’s initial projections, which estimated that 7,000 to 12,000 people would qualify for the program.
The figure is up from September 2025, when a CalMatters investigation found that only 528 people had been enrolled in CARE agreements or plans, and that many of those enrollees continued to struggle. A new in-depth report from the state, which provides detailed data on CARE Court participation, also shows that people who use CARE Court are experiencing better housing outcomes and increased access to mental health treatment and medication.
“I’ve had clients say, ‘This is the longest I haven’t been arrested,’ and that gives me goosebumps,” Katia Benthale, deputy public defender for Ventura County, said in a news release from the governor’s office touting CARE Court.
The governor’s office referred CalMatters’ questions to the state’s Health and Human Services Agency. Rodger Butler, a spokesperson for the agency, said CARE Court has reached more than 10,000 people – a conclusion the administration came to by adding together the 5,484 petitions filed as of June, plus the 4,887 people who first engaged with CARE Court but ended up getting services elsewhere.
But he acknowledged that math could double-count people, as some individuals may have been the subject of a petition and then received services elsewhere. And he acknowledged that it includes people who had their petitions dismissed without receiving services, and those whose petitions are still being processed and have yet to receive services.
Even so, the state stands by its framing of CARE Court as a success.
“Taken together, the picture is clear: thousands of Californians living with serious mental illness have been connected to care because of CARE,” Butler said in an email.
Advocates — both those who want more people ordered into treatment and those who view involuntary treatment as a violation of someone’s civil liberties — continue to criticize the program.
‘I though it would be the answer’
Family members whose loved ones live with untreated serious mental illnesses were once among CARE Court’s biggest cheerleaders. As the years pass, these families have increasingly voiced frustration with the program.
“The governor, I don’t know what county he’s seeing these results in,” said Gigi Crowder, chief executive of NAMI Contra Costa.
Crowder said the families she knows whose loved ones most need the help — unsheltered with severe mental illnesses — are not being served by CARE Court.
“Those family members are still pretty frustrated because they thought it would be the answer and it has not been,” she said. “Shoot, I thought it would be the answer.”
Disability rights advocates have long criticized CARE Court as being a poor use of state funds, and part of a larger swing toward forced treatment. They, too, are questioning the numbers that the administration is touting as evidence of its success.
They believe families are giving up on the program, a trend they see reflected in state data. It shows the proportion of CARE Court petitions filed by someone with a personal relationship to the participant dropping from 67% to 26%.
“It’s not surprising because CARE Court is not delivering on what it told families it would,” said Monica Gilbert, associate director and senior counsel of Public Policy for Disability Rights California. Newsom’s administration attributes that decline to a concurrent increase in petitions filed by mental health providers, likely due to more outreach, training and technical assistance.
Gilbert and Keris Myrick, the organization’s board chair, both sat on the state’s CARE Act working group and said they weren’t given a chance to review the report before it was published.
“Are we really involved, or are we window dressing?” Myrick said.
Is CARE Court helping with housing?
The new CARE Court report says that more people are using the program, and many are getting housing and services, but it also flags areas of concern. The time it took for courts to rule on CARE Court petitions varied widely from county to county, with median waits reaching three months in more densely populated areas. Counties also continue to dismiss large numbers of CARE Court petitions. Among the hundreds of people dismissed from CARE Court, nearly three-quarters received no county mental health or addiction services.
More than half of participants with active CARE plans or agreements experienced what the report called an “event that may signal a need that was not addressed,” while in the program. Those events included jail or prison encounters, conservatorships, hospitalizations and death.
When Newsom launched CARE Court, a major selling point was that it would help people living on the streets with serious mental illness. But CalMatters reporting found that it struggled to help unhoused Californians.
About a quarter of CARE Court participants were homeless when they started the program, according to the new state report. That low number is notable, said Samuel Jain, a senior policy attorney at Disability Rights, because the “governor’s whole thing is it’s supposed to be a panacea to solve the homelessness crisis.”
Of those enrolled in CARE Court, many participants’ housing situation changed for the better, the report said. The proportion of CARE Court participants living in temporary or permanent housing grew from 53% to 71%. Nearly half of all people who started CARE Court while homeless became sheltered or housed.
After five months in CARE Court, 87% of participants were accessing a mental health service and 61% were receiving medication, according to the report.
Legislators have called CARE Court a work in progress, and each year they pass new laws designed to fix perceived gaps in the program. Two such laws made it onto the books this year. One makes it easier for first responders, such as firefighters and EMTs, to refer people into CARE Court. The other lets family members give information about a participant to that person’s CARE Court treatment team, in the hope that it might be helpful for their treatment.
Two other bills, which would have created a direct path between CARE Court and the mental health conservatorship program, died before reaching Newsom’s desk.
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