An Advocate Thought CARE Court Would Be a Lifeline. Then She Used It.

Anita Fisher thought CARE Court would be different when she sat down for a “60 Minutes” interview almost two years ago.  

The longtime Spring Valley mental health advocate thought the initiative would provide a new tool for families like hers – families who have felt powerless as their loved ones with serious psychotic disorders repeatedly cycle between jails, hospitals and the street. 

The state law Anita described as a potential lifeline in her interview created a new court system that allows families to petition courts to order treatment. Anita hoped she wouldn’t need to submit a petition for her son, Pharoh Degree, but told a reporter she’d do it if she needed to. 

“I have no hesitation,” Anita told the “60 Minutes” crew in May 2023. “It is trauma for the family to keep going through that with their loved one.” 

Months later, Anita didn’t hesitate to reach for that lifeline when her son seemed to be spiraling.   

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2023, Anita rushed to a downtown courthouse to deliver a petition for her then 45-year-old son who was on the brink of an eviction and once again struggling with schizophrenia and addiction. 

And yet, more than a year into her son’s journey with CARE Court, her family’s trauma hasn’t subsided.  

In the months since a judge deemed Pharoh eligible for CARE Court, he has spent two weeks-long stints in jail and went missing for a time after walking away from a treatment program. 

Anita thought CARE Court would prevent those nightmare scenarios. She expected the program to pursue more intensive involuntary treatment through a temporary hold or even a conservatorship if her son’s condition deteriorated further. That didn’t happen. 

Pharoh, now out of jail and staying in a North County independent living facility he accessed through the CARE program, has seen CARE Court as a lifeline. It’s a voluntary program tailored to his preferences that hasn’t given up on him.  

“I get a second chance and a third chance,” he said. 

This is Anita and Pharoh’s story. 

… 

From a young age, Pharoh has been known for his kindness. As Anita would later tell the national news crew, teachers often noted in his report cards that it was a joy to have him in their class. 

As a young man, Pharoh joined the U.S. Army. He passed basic and advanced training and was stationed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as a medical specialist. Then a doctor diagnosed him with schizophrenia.  

As Pharoh would later tell it in a video sponsored by a county mental health campaign, he spent the next 11 years “in and out of jails, prisons, institutions and homeless.” 

Anita’s experience trying to help her son – and lessons she learned along the way – propelled her to leave her banking career in 2007 to work at the National Alliance on Mental Illness San Diego. There, Anita spent a dozen years educating and supporting other families trying to navigate the mental health system before retirement. She has continued that work as a volunteer. For a time, Pharoh also worked at NAMI as a peer helpline specialist, helping others navigate the challenges he had. That’s when he was featured in the county-sponsored video. 

But Pharoh’s struggles weren’t behind him.  

Over the past decade, Pharoh has sometimes voluntarily accessed care but also experienced bouts of homelessness and served time in state prison after a 2012 assault conviction. 

For years, Anita felt she had little recourse to ensure her son got the care and treatment she believed he needed to thrive. 

She was excited in 2022 when she learned about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CARE Court proposal. Anita learned that the new system would give families and other stakeholders a chance to make the case for court-ordered care and set the stage for a conservatorship if the program decided an enrollee needed more support. 

Anita and other families latched onto declarations by state officials that the legislation would represent a “paradigm shift.”  

In May 2022, Anita and several other family members of people with serious mental illnesses met with Newsom to discuss their experiences and the CARE Act bill that was starting to make its way through the state legislature. Anita recalls telling Newsom that CARE Court could help families avoid heartache and telling others after the meeting that she felt he understood those families’ agony.   

“He was clearly on our side, and he was very well versed,” Anita said. 

About a year later, a “60 Minutes” crew interviewed Anita at her Spring Valley home. At the time, Pharoh was in an Oceanside recovery program following another criminal conviction and the state was preparing to implement the new law. Anita was cautiously optimistic about what might come next – and hopeful she wouldn’t need CARE Court.  

San Diego County rolled out its CARE Act program in October 2023.  

Around the same time, Anita helped Pharoh move into a Little Italy studio. Both mother and son were excited. Pharoh was eager to restart his life. 

Almost a month in, Anita said apartment management told her that her son was behaving in unsettling ways in common areas and the situation was worsening by the week. They were starting the eviction process. 

Anita immediately assumed Pharoh had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication. Pharoh recalls relapsing and not being “100 percent ready” for recovery from his drug addictions.  

After a handful of mental health crisis calls, Anita submitted a CARE Act petition at a downtown county courthouse and soon learned her son met initial criteria for outreach and further evaluation.  

By late December, the county’s CARE team was trying to persuade a now-homeless Pharoh to voluntarily opt into the program. Pharoh doesn’t remember much about this process.  

Anita attended Pharoh’s CARE Court petition hearing on Jan. 3, 2024. He didn’t show.  

Anita recalls hearing that the county team would have to persuade Pharoh to sign onto the CARE program. She tried to explain that her son didn’t recognize his illness and would likely refuse treatment. She told the judge that families expected the program to serve people who wouldn’t seek voluntary treatment. The judge told her that the CARE program was entirely voluntary. 

“It hit me that this is not the program family members advocated for,” Anita said. 

A few weeks later, Anita and her husband drove downtown during an unprecedented rainstorm to check on their son. They drove him to a church that was taking in unsheltered people. Pharoh, however, recalls sleeping outside in the rain. 

In the weeks to come, Anita said the CARE program helped Pharoh move into a series of motels. He bounced from Mission Valley to La Mesa and finally to El Cajon.  

Pharoh acknowledges he’d “tear up” the hotel rooms but appreciated the chance to get off the street to shower, eat and think. 

“I needed that because I’d be under a blanket in Balboa Park,” Pharoh said. 

During this time, he recalls workers from Telecare Corporation, a county contractor, visiting him in the hotels and taking him to 7-Eleven to buy food. Pharoh said he was excited about the prospect of Telecare helping him get housing, something he wasn’t sure he could get on his own. That was ultimately what motivated him to agree to be part of the CARE Court program. 

Then, in early March 2024, El Cajon police arrested Pharoh less than a mile from the hotel where he had recently stayed. 

At the time, Pharoh said he was restless in the El Cajon hotel waiting for a new apartment that the county-contracted CARE team promised. It seemed like it would never come.  

“I wasn’t in a good place then,” Pharoh said. 

Pharoh recalls picking up a box on a doorstep and encountering several El Cajon police officers who rushed toward him. It all happened so quickly. 

El Cajon police alleged in a report that Pharoh stole a $56 package, walked away from a police sergeant who confronted him and then got in tussle with officers after he refused to follow their commands. Pharoh was arrested and later charged with resisting an officer and petty theft, though the box was recovered during the incident. He ultimately pleaded guilty to resisting an officer. 

Pharoh, whose arrest also constituted a probation violation, spent more than three months in county jail. 

Anita was devastated. 

She tried to maintain hope last June when, with the help of the CARE program, Pharoh was released into a residential treatment program at Veterans Village of San Diego. Sure enough, Anita thought at the time, Pharoh seemed to be doing well.  

While in jail, Pharoh started taking Suboxone, a medication that helped him avoid drug cravings that spurred past relapses. He seemed more clear-headed and followed the rules of the VVSD program.  

Then, after months of progress, Pharoh walked away from VVSD in early November after receiving a day pass to leave the facility. Anita was terrified. She reported him missing and checked the sheriff department’s website twice daily to see if her son was in jail. At one point, when a police officer called to follow up, Anita feared Pharoh might be dead.  

Pharoh said he walked away out of frustration. He watched as others in the program moved into apartments and after months at VVSD, he was eager to leave. On the day he left, Pharoh said, he met with a woman who offered to rent him a place and planned to stay with her for a couple days. Then he lost his wallet and his phone. Pharoh said he remained sober during this period. 

San Diego police ultimately arrested Pharoh for a probation violation due to a missed meeting with his probation officer. It was the day after Thanksgiving, 24 days after he left VVSD.  

Once again, Anita was stunned – and disappointed. 

“Jail shouldn’t even be any part of this,” Anita said. “It shouldn’t have to be.” 

Indeed, a key goal of the CARE Act was to help people in Pharoh’s situation avoid jail time. 

Yet he spent two months in jail following his latest arrest, missing Christmas with his family. At one point, the phones were down at the Otay Mesa jail, leaving Pharoh and Anita unable to talk.  

The county acknowledges two thirds of participants in its CARE program have past or ongoing criminal justice involvement – and that this has been challenging. 

Amber Irvine, the county’s CARE program manager, said the county tries to discourage judges and other criminal justice system players from tying consequences to failure to participate in CARE and to maintain confidentiality about CARE proceedings that the law requires.  

“The tension has been unwieldy and frankly unsolvable at this point and so we’re doing what we can to be of support to individuals who have had concurrent proceedings,” Irvine said during a January presentation to a state behavioral health board. 

Pharoh has been repeatedly caught up in this tension. 

When Pharoh walked into a January court hearing with chains around his wrists and waist and saw his mother sitting in the courtroom, he couldn’t resist waving at her. Once the hearing started, the judge and attorneys discussed coordination challenges moving Pharoh into a new treatment program. 

When the hearing concluded and a sheriff’s deputy started to walk Pharoh out, he turned to Anita, asking her to deposit money in his jail account. Then Pharoh realized he wasn’t supposed to speak to her. 

“Oh, sorry,” he said.  

For Anita, the situation was evidence that Pharoh’s condition was worsening. Pharoh, already thin, also appeared gaunt and was the only person smiling during the court hearing. 

“He’s not well,” Anita said moments later. 

As she left the courthouse, Anita said Pharoh’s outlook seemed no better than in the past. CARE Court wasn’t the game changer she had hoped. Instead of a higher level of care or a conservatorship, Pharoh was stuck in jail – and there was nothing Anita could do about it. 

“All I can do is let it play out,” Anita said. 

On Jan. 31, Pharoh moved out of jail and into an Escondido independent living facility that the CARE team found for him. 

Anita hoped he would be stable enough to handle the new temporary home. She worried he’d walk away again. A day before he left jail, Anita said a county official with the CARE program reiterated after she called to check in that the new placement would be voluntary. What happened next would be up to Pharoh. 

Days after moving in, Pharoh said he appreciated his new digs and another chance from the CARE team. He didn’t mind that he could be drug tested at any time. He said he was motivated to follow the voluntary agreement he made with CARE Court that he said called for sobriety, housing and regular meetings with a psychiatrist and the county’s CARE team. He said he wasn’t hearing voices that once constantly pestered him despite not being on anti-psychotic medications that once left him with uncomfortable side effects.  

Pharoh was also appreciating simple things like sitting in the sunshine after two long months in jail. 

“After the dark days, the light shines,” he said. 

Pharoh now has another reason to be excited. He said the CARE team helped arrange a tour of an apartment complex in East Village this week. He filled out an application and after conversations during his Monday visit, he’s optimistic he’ll be approved. 

“God is really working for me,” Pharoh said. 

He noted the move would allow him to walk to the CARE Court hearings he now has downtown every 60 days.  

Pharoh said he has enjoyed the program but is starting to wonder when he’ll be done with it. He wants to feel independent, not like someone’s constantly looking over his shoulder. He resolved to wait until he officially graduates from the program, something he expects to happen by December.  

Anita is worried – and in wait and see mode. Again. 

Anita can’t help but recall moving Pharoh into his own apartment in fall 2023 and then watching his condition deteriorate in the weeks before she filed the CARE Court petition. 

“All I can think about is that we were at this exact place. He was at his own independent living,” Anita said. “What is different now?” 

State Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, author of the CARE Act bill sponsored by Newsom, told Voice of San Diego in January that Pharoh and Anita’s experience with the new court system troubled him. He was concerned about Pharoh’s jail stays during a program meant to help him avoid that outcome. He has vowed to pursue updates to the law. 

“There needs to be a remedy for people exactly like Pharoh,” Umberg said. 

After Voice updated Umberg’s office on Pharoh’s more recent experience, a spokesperson said the senator was “happy to hear about Pharoh’s progress” and “cautiously optimistic for his family.”