PLANS FOR A MUCH-NEEDED crisis center for mentally ill adults may finally be set in concrete after years of promises, public process, and funding-related setbacks.
Formerly referred to as a “sub-acute facility” and now called the Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center, the center will be a 16-bed facility offering mental health treatment and housing for up to a week for adults experiencing mental health crises. The center is expected to serve 800 adults a year—the police, hospital emergency rooms, and other providers will refer clients there.
The center will be located at SE Grand and Couch, where the Hooper Detoxification Center was located before moving to a new facility near the Rose Quarter.
Construction is expected to start this summer. Karl Brimner, the director of Multnomah County’s mental health and addictions programs, says he is “relatively certain” the center will open in April 2011.
“The Crisis Assessment and Treatment Center has long been identified as a critical gap in our mental health delivery system. It’s very important that it is completed,” says former Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler.
Wheeler made it a priority to fund the center and its construction. When he abruptly left county government to become state treasurer in March, many wondered if the project would suffer from the lack of Wheeler’s advocacy for mental health care funding.
But the city’s $1.6 million settlement with the family of James Chasse, a schizophrenic man who died while in police custody in 2006, brings to the fore the necessity of building the center. Had such a facility existed at the time, it could have treated Chasse.
The old Crisis Triage Center, which was similar to the new center, was operated by the county and closed in 2001 because of lack of funding.
Also giving “urgency to the issue,” says current County Chair Jeff Cogen, are the recent fatal police shootings of Aaron Campbell, Jackie Dale Collins, and the May 12 shooting of Keaton Otis. All three victims suffered from mental illness.
“It shows what can happen when things go wrong,” Cogen says, adding that the shootings demonstrate that Multnomah County’s mental health system is “frayed.”
Cogen emphasizes that the center will not solve every problem related to mental illness in Multnomah County. “It’s a piece of the puzzle and it will make things better,” he says.
Certainty that the center will be built and operational by April 2011 only came after the county gave up its efforts to fund the center by itself, when they reached out to the state, the City of Portland, and other entities to split the costs.
“Funding has a lot to do with it not being implemented earlier,” says Brimner. “It was essential for that collaboration to occur.”
Construction is expected to cost $4.5 million and annual operating costs will be approximately $3.2 million. The money for construction is coming from a variety of sources, including the Portland Development Commission, the county, Central City Concern, and new market tax credits. The county is trying to wrap up the funding package for construction to begin this summer.
The state, county, city, and Medicaid reimbursements are covering operating costs. The city and county will pay $137,500 each for operating the center in the last fiscal quarter of 2011.
It is still not entirely clear how the center will be funded in the future. The county is requesting the State of Oregon Addictions and Mental Health division to pay $1 million for construction costs. But when contacted, division spokesperson Andrea Cantu-Schomus would not confirm whether the state is contributing funding.
And negotiations are underway to determine whether the city will split the county’s $1.1 million share of the operating costs, meaning that each entity would pay $550,000. Mayor Sam Adams says he is “absolutely” committed to splitting costs with the county, “even if the state ends up not funding it.”
Although he hopes the city will help pay the operating costs, Cogen says he is “fully committed” to monetizing the center with ongoing funding in the county’s budget. “The last thing I would want is to open it for the last quarter and then close it,” he says.
Jason Renaud with the Mental Health Association of Portland says facilities like the center should not be the victim of political and budget “whims” because of how many people rely on their services.
“When you make a promise to open a facility like this, you are a making a promise… that this will be open for a long period of time,” Renaud says.
Renaud, for one, says he is skeptical that the county is going to be able to keep its implicit promise, in this case. Multnomah County’s general fund relies in part on money funneled from the state for mental health and addictions treatment.
“State funding is about to fall off a cliff,” he says. “We’re in a world of hurt next year, and every new project that doesn’t have a strong constituency is going to be cut to the bone. This is not a good time to be starting with patchwork solutions.”
This article has been corrected from its original version. It incorrectly stated that Multnomah County requested $1 million form the state for operating costs. The request is actually for construction costs.
The idea that a subacute facility could have prevented Chasse’s death is absurd. The subacute facility will only help people who are willing to accept help. It’s about being at the right place at the right time. Those people are already being treated at a hospital, community mental health center, respite facility, or the walk in clinic.
Take it from an insider–the subacute facility is being designed for one thing and one things only–to save the county money because they can pay less for beds at subacute than beds at a hospital psych unit. Yes, it will treat some sick people. But mostly it’s going to be used up by the same attention-seeking, drug-seeking and 3hotsandacot-seeking people but at a lower price to the community. So I say yay.
16 beds is a laughable number, and a week maximum stay is silly to truly deal with the number and far reaching effect that adults with mental stability issues have in Portland.
The questions are simple: Would this facitity have prevented the Otis shooting? The Jackie Collins shooting? The Aaron campbell shooting? The Beanbag girl beatdown? The [insert beatup mentally ill person here] beating?
Nope – but pay no attention to the mentally ill people behind the curtain! Look at the fancy new building! Isn’t it shiny?
number 6–have you seen hooper? a fancy building? your ignorance is shocking. As long as Portland keeps drinking the liberal koolaid and demanding more help, more help, more help..like it’s some kind of simple equation where the mentally ill are the good guys and the police and the providers are the bad guys…nothing will change. Bean bag girl, for instance, is more a victim of lousy parenting and a culture of solving your every irritation with violence and verbal abuse than she is a victim of the police. But of course, she’s a minor with a “mental illness” so all of that stuff will stay secret from the court of public opinion while she becomes a mascot for the bleed out agenda.
spartacus – The mentally ill are victims of police violence. People who should be detained and taken to a mental health facility (or assisted by EMTs at the very least) are instead brutalized by the incompetent and incredibly aggressive police department.
Responding in such a violent manner to people in need of help does make the police the “bad guys”. There’s no other way to see it.
You’re building quite a poor strawman argument with all this talk about “culture”. Want to talk about culture? Riddle me this: does police brutality contribute to violent culture? You compare “verbal abuse” to murder.
Keep on blaming the victim, asshole. Maybe one day you’ll get shot by the cops over nothing and will finally understand who the real threat is.
Chasse was one of the 100s of chronically mentally ill on the streets downtown. He died because he ran away from police when he got scared and the police chased him, after catching him reportedly pissing against a wall downtown. A thousand bed facility wouldn’t have changed that circumstance.
A 16 bed facility will fill in 30 minutes, evidently once a week. If it is to include people on county NMI or MHD “holds”, it will just be another temporary drop off site in lieu of something a few miles further away. The police are dropping off dozens of the mentally to PDX hospital ERs every day unharmed. The ill get “held” for a day or two and the county perfunctorily drops the “hold”. There is essentially no civil commitment in Oregon any more, so there really is no point in court hearings or commitment; there is no place to which to commit anyone. That was arranged in Salem State Capitol long ago.
This scenario will likely be the Otis back-story, if it ever comes out. He needed involuntary treatment, but the county and the courts abstained or abnegated. Don’t forget there are potent interest groups totally opposed to involuntary treatment.
The State itself has gradually gotten out of the business of last-option-care for the mentally ill over the past 30 years. As well, the courts abhor involuntary treatment of any kind.
Who’s to blame? Everybody is guilty and innocence at the same time for this return to a sort of medieval intolerance and neglect for the mentally ill. In time, after enough carnage, the populace will awaken, the State will begin building hospitals again 20 miles outside the city limits, civil commitment will reappear, and the pendulum will swing back. Sadly though, the carnage will likely have to include the deaths of innocent citizens without mental illness, as the deaths of the mentally ill have always been ignored.