California Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging California counties to implement a new law that makes it easier to appoint a guardian to direct the care of people with mental illness or substance abuse to prevent further crises, such as imprisonment, homelessness or death.
County health departments have until January 2026 to implement the changes outlined in Senate Bill 43, which was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Newsom last October. Since then, only San Francisco and San Luis Obispo counties have taken advantage of the new law.
Los Angeles County, the state’s largest county, did not.
Newsom sent a letter Saturday to the chairs of the state’s 58 county boards of supervisors, urging them to immediately expand guardianship laws in their jurisdictions.
“I am disappointed that only two California counties have implemented this critical, life-saving work to date and only a few others have plans to implement it in 2025,” the governor wrote.
“While we have unprecedented tools to begin helping our state’s most vulnerable right awayYou are still waiting to implement this element of the work to improve our guardianship system until the absolute deadline.
The bill introduced by Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) is part of a decades-long legislative effort to amend the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, passed in 1967. That law said a person could be held against their will if they were “seriously disabled” or posed a danger to themselves or others.
In recent years, lawmakers have worked to revise the landmark law, passed when Ronald Reagan was governor, in an effort to address a statewide mental health crisis compounded by homelessness and illicit drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine.
The new law updates the definition of “seriously disabled” to include people who are unable to provide for themselves for personal safety, medical care, food, clothing or shelter, Newsom said.
Critics, including human rights and disability rights advocates, argue that SB 43 could undermine the civil liberties of Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, given the demographics of the state’s homeless population.
Others believe the move risks overwhelming an already strained mental health system.
Deb Roth, a senior legislative attorney for Disability Rights California, said the bill “will lead to increased reliance on guardianship, which disenfranchises people.” Roth testified against the bill before the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
In his letter, Newsom described the bill as a broader approach to providing last-resort behavioral health care to people in crisis.
“Every day I hear about the dire urgency of our mental health crisis. I see people wasting away on our streets, often forgotten by their own communities,” Newsom said.
“This is completely unacceptable, and the state has updated its laws to ensure that people with serious mental illness or serious substance use disorders who are at greatest risk of harm can have a guardian appointed to direct their care – with continued protection of individual rights and increased transparency on data, equity and outcomes.”
Times reporter Tom Curwen contributed to this report.
