Families push for opening of dormant Vancouver mental health campus
As Washington's Department of Social and Health Services neared completion on a new mental health facility in Vancouver last year, lawmakers announced sweeping budget cuts - indefinitely delaying the campus from admitting patients.
While the Brockmann Residential Treatment Facility sits dormant, a group of advocates, mostly parents and family members of people with serious mental illness, are pushing for the state to quickly open the facility - urging lawmakers to consider alternate options such as letting a private company operate a treatment center on the campus.
The $42 million campus was supposed to eventually serve 48 patients, particularly those under civil commitment," or involuntary long-term mental health care for people who haven't been charged with crimes but are found to be at risk of harming themselves or others. The facility was intended to employ more than 100 staffers at full capacity.
But as the campus was being constructed, state lawmakers last year cut funding for the facility in the state budget. Legislators instead opted to fund a "warm closure," paying staff to maintain the facility but not accepting any patients.
Parents and family advocates from Southwest Washington say they're anxious to see the campus open - citing the immense cost to both patients and their caregivers when there aren't enough treatment options. State and local governments, they said, end up spending more money on incarceration and medical care for those patients, and the toll on families can come in the form of lost wages and health challenges.
"We talk a lot about the cost of opening Brockmann, but not about the cost of not opening it," said Jerri Clark, a parent of a son with serious mental illness who died in 2019.
Clark, who works for the mental health nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center, is one of the founders of the "Let's Open Brockmann" group, which has been meeting since August and contacting lawmakers and the governor to push for action on the dormant facility.
DSHS has begun holding listening sessions to seek input from state and local elected officials, behavioral health workers and people with lived experience. It must submit a report to Gov. Bob Ferguson's office in September with recommendations for how to move forward with the facility
But it's too early in budget discussions to make any predictions about what the state will be able to do, said Caitlin Safford, a health policy analyst from Ferguson's office.
She said "all options are on the table," but that transferring the campus over to private ownership could present some complications. Doing so would impact the number of mental health beds the state is required to have, she said. It also wouldn't necessarily speed up the process for people to get into long-term treatment, she said.
In Washington, patients being considered for "civil commitment" must be evaluated by a mental health worker called a Designated Crisis Responder, who assesses whether a person is a danger to themselves or others in that moment. Opening the new facility wouldn't change that process, which can be slow.
Still, family advocates said having more beds would alleviate a big problem in the community for those who need mental health treatment.
"DCRs are saying we don't have any place to put them, so we won't put them on hold," said Andy Prater, a member of the Let's Open Brockmann group. "If there is a facility, they'll start putting them there.
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