ADVOCACY UPDATE

State Ordered to Provide Mental Health Services to Foster Children.

A federal judge gave state officials until mid-July to begin providing desperately needed mental health services to troubled foster children. Judge A. Howard Matz issued a preliminary injunction on March 4 in Katie A. v. Bonta, ordering within 120 days the provision of wraparound and therapeutic foster care to a statewide class of 85,000 children. Describing class members as “among the most fragile members of our society,” Judge Matz ruled that wraparound and therapeutic foster care were services that states must provide their Medicaid recipients.

Both wraparound and therapeutic foster care take an individualized approach to helping foster children. They build on positive family strengths, and provide crisis intervention, family counseling, assistance with child management and skills and access to other community support programs. Judge Matz found that improving services to foster children will actually save the State money by avoiding costly placements in group homes and other institutions.

Western Center is co-counseling with Heller, Ehrman LLP, National Center for Youth Law, Protection & Advocacy and ACLU of Southern California.

San Diego Indigent Health Care Limits Invalidated, But Battle Continues.

San Diego County’s former $802 income gap for county health care was held invalid in November, but the battle continues over the County’s revised policies. In Alford v. County of San Diego, Judge Ronald L. Styn struck down the $802 limit for a single person because it was not based on actual ability to pay. The court relied on evidence concerning numerous individuals such as plaintiff Renee Alford, whose cancer became inoperable after the County refused her care because her income was slightly above the $802 cap.

The County Board of Supervisors then raised the income limit for free care to $1,078, while continuing its policy of denying care at all to people above that limit. The increase in the limit benefited approximately half of the countywide plaintiff class. Plaintiffs went back to court, objecting both to the amount chosen – the County assumed for example, that people could find housing in San Diego for $497 per month – and refusing to assist over-income people who are able to pay for a share of their treatment. This time, Judge Styn ruled against the plaintiffs, but told lead counsel WCLP attorney Katie Murphy: “I think it’s a great case for appeal and I can see an appellate court siding with you on this . . . .”

Western is co-counseling with Board member Juanita Brooks and associates from Fish & Richardson.

LA County Agrees to Revise Coastal Zone Affordable Housing Policies.

Housing advocates have persuaded Los Angeles County to change its policies concerning affordable housing in the Coastal Zone. Under the Mello Act, local governments must require inclusion of low and moderate income housing, when feasible, for new projects in the Coastal Zone, and one-for-one replacement housing when low income units are demolished or converted. Housing advocates, represented by Western Center and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, argued that the County’s current policies violated these mandates, and the County agreed to enact new policies.