Column: New York will treat more mentally ill people against their will. Should California follow?

Maddie Delaney and her mother, Jennifer Williams, last month, a few weeks before Delaney was killed in a hit-and-run in Modesto. Recently, California and New York City have made bold moves to help people like Delaney — those with serious mental illness chronically living on the streets — because it has become painfully obvious that for a small set of homeless people with psychosis, it is cruel and dangerous to pretend they are acting with free will. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams announced this week he will broaden the use of involuntary mental health holds, targeting those with the most serious forms of mental illness. Though it has a clinical definition, serious mental illness for all practical purposes is now similar to the famous definition of hard-core pornography coined by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” Personally, I believe people with a serious mental illness whose condition makes it impossible for them to live a housed life with stability and safety should have a legal right to care — and that is a situation that needs to be evaluated one person at a time. It’s that hazy understanding of what serious mental illness is that has made it nearly impossible to help people like Maddie Delaney.