Olmstead Lawsuit Challenges Alameda County’s Mental Health System, Seeks Systemic Changes
July 31, 2020
DREDF and co-counsel Disability Rights California (DRC), Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of DRC and its constituents with serious mental health disabilities against Alameda County and Alameda Health System. The lawsuit challenges the County’s failures to provide adequate community-based services to people with serious mental health disabilities causing unnecessarily cycling through the County’s locked facilities, including the John George Psychiatric Hospital and the Santa Rita Jail. The complaint details how Black people with serious mental health disabilities are harmed at staggeringly high rates by Alameda County’s failures to provide intensive and appropriate community-based services. The lawsuit seeks increased linkages and access to community-based services and decreased reliance on institutionalization.