By Taylor Walker, Photo: WitnessLA, Center for Health Journalism, December 2, 2021
In April 2020, I read a brief report on Los Angeles County’s efforts to reduce incarceration among vulnerable groups — including people with mental health diagnoses and unhoused individuals — through diversion programs.
The report from LA’s Office of Diversion and Reentry (ODR) revealed that, as of March 2020, the Maternal Health Diversion Program had removed 137 pregnant people from the county’s main women’s jail since the program’s 2018 inception. Most participants, the report said, were in interim housing, where they could live during and after pregnancy, and where children from whom they were separated due to incarceration could live too. Forty people had graduated from interim housing into their own apartments and houses.
At the outset, I wanted to know more about the maternal health program and about the participants. Yet my early searches turned up little additional information.
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