A controversial measure that would force more mentally ill people into treatment is awaiting Gov. Gray Davis' signature.

Many parents of mentally ill adults are supporting AB 1421, hoping it can help their children get the services they need to put them back on the path to a normal life. But some advocacy groups oppose it, saying it might scare people away from the few voluntary services that do exist.

Local mental health officials said that even if the bill passes, it is unlikely the money to administer it will be available. No funding is attached to the bill.

"At this point, unless there's a money tree somewhere -- and I sure don't see one in Sacramento -- I don't see how counties are going to do this, without doing harm to something else," said Donna Wigand, Contra Costa County's mental health director.

Proponents have countered that the bill will save money because fewer people will cycle through expensive hospitalizations and jail.

Authored by Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis, the bill would allow city or county mentalhealth workers to ask courts for permission to force mentally ill people who refuse treatment to accept outpatient help, which could include medication, therapy and a host of other services.

Current law allows courts to commit people who are an immediate danger to themselves or others, or who are so gravely disabled they cannot provide food and shelter for themselves.

But those commitments often last only long enough to stabilize someone temporarily, parents said. They said a lot of people who do not meet the criteria simply slip through the cracks.

Modeled on a similar law in New York state, the bill would allow judges to require services for adults whose mental condition is fast deteriorating or in danger of deteriorating. The person must have already faced multiple hospitalizations or have been violent. And they must have the chance to accept voluntary treatment first.

Some observers fear the bill will target the homeless, many of whom are victims of mental illness. "What we end up saying is that all of behavioral health care is harm removal, not a harm reduction strategy. It's about how to remove people from the community who others find harmful. I think that's not a direction we want to move into," said Dave Kears, Alameda County's health care director.

Local homeless advocates gave the bill mixed reviews.

"If mean-spirited bureaucrats got a judge's ear, I could see the possibility of (bad things) happening. But in the best of worlds, if people have the person at heart, it could work," said Calvin Johnson, services coordinator for BOSS' mentally ill homeless services in Hayward. Johnson supports the bill.Families hopeful

Family members of mentally ill adults are hopeful the bill can help their loved ones.

Marsha Ryle thinks the bill could help her 39-year-old son, who recently stopped taking his medication and disappeared.

He was studying classical music in Manhattan when his illness first struck, 13 years ago. Ever since, Ryle said it has been a constant battle to keep her son stable, who she said suffers from paranoid delusions,.

"My son has no concept that he's ill," Ryle said. But she said the medication has allowed him to live in a studio apartment in her Emeryville condominium complex and to attend a local university, where he has an A average.

But when he went off his medication for the first time in eight years, everything changed.

"He's been set back, because he's been ill," Ryle said. "You can't study, because you're so paranoid. You're running. All your life goals get put out."

Ryle heaved a sigh of relief last week when she got the call that her son was in a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. But after two days, she said, he was released. She thinks he is somewhere in Anchorage still but does not know where. She is not sure if she will be able to get him back into treatment.

The lack of information and help available can translate into an agonizing experience for parents and siblings. Mentally ill people are at high risk of suicide and a higher risk of becoming crime victims than most other people.

"It's not just frustrating. It's terrifying," Ryle said. "And it just requires tremendous endurance."

But opponents of the bill said forcing people into care might not be the most effective treatment option. They said proponents are simply looking for ways to compensate for the myriad flaws in the current mental health care system, which both sides said only treats people when they reach a critical point.

"Most of the forced treatment is a failure to provide meaningful services on demand," said Nancy Thomas, executive director of the Alameda County Network of Mental Health Clients. "It's very difficult to really get services without creating a crisis or being deemed dangerous."Heightened stigma

The stigma of mental illness may also be heightened by forcing someone into treatment, opponents said. That could keep people from seeking help.

Jerry Thomas of Oakland said she does not want to take medication for her manic depression, because she is afraid she could get caught up in the mental health system and lose her daughter.

"When I get depressed, I listen to music, something to get me out of that. You don't have to take medication," said Thomas, a service advocate at the Berkeley drop-in center for the mentally ill.

A recent set of laws authorizes some money for county mental health departments to set up intensive, voluntary services for the mentally ill -- an approach that has had an 84 percent success rate with people who were often considered untreatable in the past, according to a state report.Up to counties to decide

Bill opponents and some mental health directors said they would like to extend that approach and fully use existing law, before forcing people into treatment. County supervisors would decide whether to use the bill locally, and they could do so only if voluntary programs set up through two earlier bills are in place.

San Joaquin County, Contra Costa County and Berkeley have such services; Alameda County does not. But officials in these places said the money treats few of the people who really need help.

"With a properly funded system and new approaches, in terms of how we engage people as well as new medications that are better than the old ones -- let's try and support that before we enact laws where the basis of the relationship is a coercive and adversarial one," said Harvey Tureck, director of Berkeley's mental health program.