Joel EngelhardtHealth Care District of Palm Beach County prepares to buy land and build a centralized receiving center for mental health care and substance abuse disorder; county to contribute $10 million toward $60 million bill.
This story, first published Jan. 6, has been updated with coverage of Tuesday morning’s County Commission discussion.
Palm Beach County commissioners committed Tuesday to contributing $10 million in federal COVID relief money to the construction of a $60 million crisis care center, a potential first step in transforming mental health care in Palm Beach County.
After hearing emotional testimony supporting the first-stop mental health site, commissioners shortened the contractual timeline to five years for the Health Care District of Palm Beach County to buy land, design the facility and build it.
The district is studying two potential sites, one a Health Care District-owned site in Riviera Beach, the other a 6-8 acre privately owned site north of Southern Boulevard, Health Care District CEO Darcy Davis said.
The goal is to open the building by spring 2028, she said.
The county contribution, initially promised in 2021 after mental health services suffered a blow with the 2019 closure of the Jerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health, would pay for land, design or construction.
Commissioners heard from Ladi March Goldwire, whose son Donel Elam had been a standout high school football player but now is turning 30 in the St. Lucie County Jail. After a diagnosis of mental illness and 87 hospitalizations during his 20s, Goldwire said, he ran out of mental health options and she knew jail would be the safest place for him over the holidays.
“Local hospitals have labeled him a drain on their resources,” she said in emphatically supporting the crisis stabilization center. “There just is nothing here.”
The new public defender, Daniel Eisinger, attended on his first morning on the job “to underscore how important this topic is.” Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson also rang in with support.
The center would be a place police could bring people in need of help instead of taking them to jail or private hospitals that may not be able to treat them.
“Every chief in Palm Beach County supports the Health Care District initiative to move forward with a program like this,” said Richard Jones, the police chief in Gulf Stream and head of the county’s Association of Police Chiefs. “This is the only plan we’ve seen that actually incorporates all care from homeless services to mental health services to food services to housing services.”
Added Tony Spatara, an assistant West Palm Beach police chief, “The revolving door is heartbreaking.”
State Rep. Mike Caruso, R-West Palm Beach, told the harrowing tale of his son’s yearslong mental health breakdown and said, even now, after years of recovery, his son’s condition is precarious.
“My son is in crisis. Today, Palm Beach County is in crisis. 911 is not the answer. (Involuntary) Baker Act treatment is not the answer. The answer is a long-term answer. The answer is this Palm Beach County Health Care District receiving facility.”
The Health Care District, which is supported by taxpayers, pledged to pay the rest of the building costs and to cover its $30 million annual operating expenses. Caruso’s wife, Tracy, serves on the Health Care District board.
The center would serve all patients, regardless of ability to pay, providing 24/7 intensive, short-term stabilization care “in a warm and welcoming environment.”
It would add mental health beds and assessment options, centralize services and replace the county jail as a key health-care provider. It would ease the load on the court system and provide an alternative to emergency rooms that may or may not have ready access to psychiatric services.
It would augment or replace work now done by the county’s four hospitals that admit patients involuntarily under the Baker Act: Delray Medical Center’s Fair Oaks Pavilion, South County Mental Health Center, HCA Florida JFK North Hospital and NeuroBehavioral Hospitals at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
One of its aims is to make up for the 2019 closure of Jerome Golden.
- That independent nonprofit specialized in low-income or uninsured patients.
- Its site on 45th Street remains empty, owned since 2020 by a for-profit New Jersey health-care provider.
The district’s proposal is backed by a $100,000 consultant’s report published last year that suggested the county undertake the federal “Crisis Now” model by making improvements in emergency call centers, mobile response and crisis receiving centers.
“Successful implementation will require the coordination and cooperation of all parties involved,” the consultant, Initium Health, wrote. “As an existing medical provider and a taxpayer-funded entity, the Health Care District is well positioned to leverage its resources to facilitate the implementation of the Crisis Now Model in Palm Beach County.”
The Health Care District’s consultant pointed to similar crisis centers in Broward County (Henderson Behavioral Health Center), Arizona, Colorado and California.
The agreement between the county and the Health Care District provided for milestone dates stretching out over eight years but the commission voted to shorten those.
County Commissioner Sara Baxter suggested cutting the amount to $5 million and devoting the other $5 million to partner with the private sector to meet immediate needs now.
“To wait three, five, 10 years, I find a problem with that,” Baxter said. “We need to find dollars (to help) while this is getting built.”
But Commissioner Gregg Weiss, who was on the commission when it decided to earmark American Rescue Plan Act money in July 2021, said the contribution is part of an effort to improve relations between two of the largest supporters of health care in the county: the Health Care District and the Southeast Florida Behavioral Health Network, which decides how state money is spent here.
He proposed shortening the timeline to no more than five years and commissioners voted 7-0 for his motion.
Patrick McNamara, whose Palm Health Foundation has advocated for improvements in mental health and substance abuse disorder care, supports the approach.
“It just makes a ton of sense when we have a local taxing district that has pretty deep pockets that is willing to get into the behavioral health-care space,” he said in an interview.
Among services to be offered, as cited in the county agreement:
- Crisis mental health services, including 24-hour mobile crisis teams, emergency crisis intervention services and crisis stabilization.
- Screening, assessment and diagnosis, including risk assessment.
- Outpatient mental health and substance use services.
- Outpatient clinic primary care screening and monitoring of key health indicators and health risk.
- Psychiatric rehabilitation services.
- Peer support, counselor services and family support.
- Behavioral health court.
Joel is a founder, reporter and editor at Stet News. His award-winning newspaper career spanned more than 40 years, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post, which he left in 2020. Joel lives with his wife in Palm Beach Gardens. He volunteers on the board of NAMI Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
