A vote for Prop. 36 is a vote for mass incarceration of people with disabilities

This November, voters will consider Proposition 36, “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” which increases penalties on retail theft crimes and classifies certain drug offenses as treatment-mandated felonies. What voters may not realize is that Prop. 36 could lead to forced treatment and mass incarceration of people living with disabilities, exacerbating the already compounding health inequities faced by communities of color.

California is famous as the birthplace of the Disability Rights Movement. People may be surprised to know that it’s also where the nation’s first “ugly law” came to be. 

If everything old really is new again, maybe it’s no surprise “ugly laws” are making a comeback. Prop. 36 is a modern version of those laws, and behavioral health issues and houselessness have become the new “ugly.” Although Prop. 36 is dressed up in the guise of “helping people who can’t help themselves,” it promotes archaic forms of institutionalization and forced treatment as the solution to the housing crisis—a policy response that is both ineffective and harmful. It’s a new ugly that, at its core, targets communities of color who are already disproportionately burdened by societal failures, compounding already dire economic and health outcomes.

Recent changes in California law have set the stage for targeting people with disabilities and perpetuating racial inequity. CARE Court forces people with certain mental health diagnoses (such as schizophrenia, which is commonly misdiagnosed in Black communities) into court-ordered treatment. But it fails to ensure access to permanent housing at the end of the road. Senate Bill 43 makes it easier to detain and conserve people in systems that disproportionately entangle people of color. Proposition 1 will provide funds to build the infrastructure to lock these folks away.

Why has California coordinated this push toward institutionalization and forced treatment? The answer is both straight-forward and perplexing. People don’t like seeing the unhoused on their streets. That’s the straight-forward part. Getting people into treatment feels good and if it means taking away their rights, well, it’s “for their own good.” C.S. Lewis’ quote about tyranny comes to mind. The perplexing parts are the willingness to scapegoat marginalized communities of color for longstanding government failures and to run back toward institutionalization. Let’s not forget the key promises made by policy makers during California’s deinstitutionalization period. Indeed, voluntary community-based services and supports, such as affordable housing, have not been rolled out at the scale needed. Instead, people have been left to languish and blamed individually for what is truly a systemic failure. 

It’s true that some unhoused people have behavioral health conditions. It’s not true that behavioral health conditions have caused our statewide homelessness crisis. Lack of affordable housing is the root cause of this systemic problem. Structural racism ensures that communities of color continue to shoulder the burden. Legislative changes over the last several years may get some people off the streets, but unfortunately, they don’t solve the root cause. Instead, they’ll use up the resources that should be dedicated to expanding voluntary community-based services that lead to long-term recovery and that address racial inequities.

The sweeps came to Camp Resolution in Sacramento last week. What started as a tent encampment on a vacant lot was transformed in 2022 when the city signed a lease with a local nonprofit. A first of its kind agreement, the lease provided for automatic renewal every four months “or until all residents have been placed in individual, permanent durable housing.” The city provided trailers, the camp was self-governing, and donations covered food, clothing and supplies for the 48 residents, mostly seniors and people with disabilities.   

Where will this all lead? A yes vote on Prop. 36 will take us another step back toward institutionalization and mass incarceration and entrench racial inequities because behavioral health plus houselessness are the “new ugly.”

Eric Harris is the Associate Executive Director for External Affairs at Disability Rights California and has had an extensive career as a policy leader at the local, state and federal levels. He has spoken  as an expert on panels at UC Berkeley, Harvard and The White House.