New Mental Health Project Lauded But Timeline Raises Doubt

Sempervirens [artist conception]

Humboldt County has gotten what’s described as “an amazing award” to build a new mental health facility but there are concerns about whether cost over-runs that scuttled a jail expansion project could happen again.

At its June 10 meeting, the Board of Supervisors was presented with the plan for replacing the county’s Sempervirens psychiatric facility.

Sempervirens is located at the Clark Complex on H and Wood streets in Eureka.

Thanks to a $43.5 million state Proposition 1 grant, the county plans on building a 16-bed facility to replace Sempervirens, with the new one slated for what is now a parking lot on Eureka’s Fifth Street between I and J streets.

Staff told supervisors construction of the new facility is expected to be done in 2030 and Supervisor Rex Bohn recommended doing it more quickly.

His doubts about the timeline stem from what happened last year, when a jail improvement project was abandoned because cost increases went too far beyond the amount of a state grant awarded several years earlier.

Bohn said shortening the timeframe has the benefit of providing mental health services sooner but also warned the project could “go the way of the jail.”

He added, “In four years we have a 30 percent increase in costs and it becomes unattainable looking at our budgets over the next three years … it just seems like we have a lot of opportunity to take a lot of hiccups in the next four years.”

Supervisor Steve Madrone said the best way to avoid cost over-runs is to head them off by improving county facilities management.

Sempervirens opened in 1970 and Health and Human Services Director Connie Beck said the building has needed “constant repairs ever since” and there haven’t been any “significant improvements” to it in the last 45 years.

During a public comment period, Public Works Director Tom Mattson acknowledged there’s risk but he believes it’s worth taking.

“Sometimes you have to take risk to get great rewards,” he said. “Make no mistake, this is a critical medical care facility. Most people think about critical medical as, you know, the hospitals, the regular doctors but mental health is also very, very critical in our community.”

The project team believes it has “built a solid budget that will survive what’s coming at us,” Mattson continued.

There are what was described as “unknowns” beyond those related to the construction.

Earlier in the discussion, Beck said operation of the new facility is yet to be decided.

“We’ll have more discussions around that and we may contract with another entity or possibly continue to run it as the county,” she continued.

The county operates Sempervirens but has several staffing contracts with specialists and nurses.

Beck said determining an operations structure will be “a work in progress over the next couple of years.”

The new facility won’t have outpatient services but it will have what Beck described as four “crisis stabilization units” for stays less than 24 hours.

Another view of Sempervirens [artist conception]