Commentary: For the last seven years, anytime I wanted to challenge county commissioners on government inefficiency, I would point to the empty building that was intended to be a crisis triage center.
It’s not just the $2 million spent to construct the building in 2012, or the money spent since then to secure and maintain it that bothered me so much. It was the obvious need that continued to go unmet every year since then.
Former County Manager Brian Haynes had convinced the County Commission, and the community, of the need for a facility other than jail where law enforcement officers could bring those who were undergoing a mental health crisis.
County jails throughout the nation have become defacto mental health providers, especially for the poor. And, with predictably horrible results.
The same year that the crisis triage center was finished, the county reached a $15.5 million settlement with former inmate Stephen Slevin, after an original award of $22 million in federal court.
Slevin was not the victim of intentional cruelty, but rather cruel neglect. Those responsible for his care lacked both the expertise and the resources to fulfill their duties.
Deputies were taking people with mental illness to jail for minor crimes because they knew it would often take hours if they were to seek mental health services for them instead, Haynes said. That was another problem that the crisis triage center was going to solve.
And so, there was a lot of optimism when county leaders grabbed their shovels and posed for the ceremonial groundbreaking photos. But by the time construction was finished, it was clear that the county didn’t have a plan for either operations or funding.
Seven years later, they still didn’t. Until now.
At the County Commission meeting Tuesday, commissioners heard a report from outside consultants on the crisis triage center, as well as the larger issues of behavioral health and criminal justice.
It recommends that the crisis triage center provide stabilization and brief intervention for those undergoing a mental health crisis, and then connections to long-term care providers. The center should be licensed for 23-hour stabilization or 14-day observation.
The report also calls for mobile crisis response teams with both law enforcement officers and mental health professionals to answer emergency calls and a pre-arrest diversion program for low-level offenders.
The report calls for the county to tap into both state and federal funding to help pay for operations of the center. And, there may be some federal money available now to get the center opened. But the long-range plan must include a stable revenue source from the county.
And there’s more good news. La Clinica de Familia recently broke ground on a new facility that will expand its ability to provide behavioral health outpatient services to adults in Las Cruces. Other centers are planned for Sunland Park and Chaparral.
It has been a struggle to right the ship ever since the disastrous overhaul of the state behavioral health system in 2013 based on false allegations of fraud. And, to be honest, the ship was on choppy waters even before then.
Behavioral health services in New Mexico have always been fragmented and difficult, if not impossible, to access in rural areas of the state. And so, I was disappointed that the Behavioral Health Community Integration Act sponsored by Sen. Mary Kay Papen and Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena didn’t get heard in the Legislature this year.
But we need to recognize and applaud progress when it happens. If the county is able to get a fully functioning crisis triage center up and running, that would be a huge step forward.
Walt Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com