California's CARE Court: Relentless Help for Mental Illness

For nearly 20 years, Janina Estrada searched for her son Jimmy behind dumpsters and in shelters, watching schizophrenia pull him through homelessness, jail, and crisis after crisis. Police once ticketed him for running into traffic during a psychotic episode instead of getting him help.

Then California launched something different. In October 2023, the state rolled out CARE Court, a program that connects people with severe psychotic disorders to housing and treatment before they end up in jail or dead.

Estrada filled out a six-page petition for her 42-year-old son. Within days, two behavioral clinicians named Juan Banda and Chauncey Bowie showed up with a radical approach: they didn't rush Jimmy to court or demand he get treatment.

They offered him a shower and a meal. They asked what he needed and let him lead the conversation.

"If it wasn't for Juan and Chauncey, my son wouldn't be here anymore," Estrada says.

Banda and Bowie work at one of the toughest intersections in American healthcare. They approach people with schizophrenia and severe psychosis who often don't know they're sick, distrust anyone in authority, or experience paranoia so intense that even a simple greeting feels threatening.

Before Jimmy got help, he had worked as a dental assistant and truck driver, married and raised two kids. Over the years, conservatorships never stuck and crisis teams refused to intervene unless he became violent.

"I was always talking to a different person, always starting over," Estrada recalls.

The Ripple Effect

Orange County's version of CARE looks different from traditional mental health interventions. While state law allows judges to order treatment, Orange County built their program around something else: showing up repeatedly, even after someone says no.

Banda often brings clients to the Hub Resource Center in Orange first. Behind a fence declaring "HOPE HAPPENS HERE," people can do laundry, eat free meals, and rest before anyone mentions court dates.

"You don't start by telling someone they have to come to court with you," Banda explains. "You start by offering them food and asking them what they need."

That philosophy comes from research showing coercion doesn't create lasting change. Veronica Kelley, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, is clear about why they chose this path.

"Coercion does not work if we want to change things long-term," she says. The work begins not with a summons, but with a simple question: "What do you need?"

Banda's most important motto is just two words: "Don't give up." He and his colleagues will try as many times as it takes, building trust one shower and one meal at a time.

For families like Estrada's who spent decades watching their loved ones slip through every crack in the system, that persistence finally offers something they'd almost given up on: hope that someone will keep showing up.