‘Game Changer!’ Millions to be Invested in Humboldt County’s Behavior Health Care
Senator Mike McGuire and Sheriff Billy Honsal at yesterday’s press release announcing a new facility for Sempervirens. [Screenshot from a video by Ryan Hutson]
State Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire joined Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal, County Supervisors, and local health officials Monday afternoon at the Eureka Veterans Memorial Hall to announce new state investments in behavioral health care on the North Coast — including plans to rebuild the county’s aging psychiatric facility, Sempervirens, in a new downtown Eureka location.
Flyer passed out at the meeting yesterday.
“This is what this community needs. This is what California needs, and this is what we’re delivering on today,” McGuire said during the press conference.
According to information distributed at the event, the new Sempervirens facility will be funded by $43.5 million from the state’s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) and matching county funds. The 20-bed crisis stabilization and inpatient psychiatric center is expected to open in 2030 and will replace the current 58-year-old structure on the Humboldt County campus near St. Joseph Hospital.
“It’s going to be a game changer for the county,” McGuire said.
Sheriff Honsal agreed saying, “What we have right now is a facility…that wasn’t originally designed to treat mental health patients, especially those in crisis. So, when we have a brand-new facility with all the programming space, all the therapeutic space, including staff,…we’re going to be able to put people back on their feet.”
He added, “Right now, the biggest mental health facility we have is our jail.” Sheriff Honsal praised the investments for addressing long-standing gaps in the system. He said some inmates who are mentally ill end up in isolation cells. He described the current situation as “not therapeutic.”
McGuire emphasized the need for modern, humane infrastructure, noting that “it is very difficult to recover from a psychiatric crisis in the surroundings in which Sempervirens currently exists today.” The new building, he said, will be safer for staff and expand its capacity and represent “a massive improvement from where we’ve been for decades.”
Along with the Sempervirens project, McGuire announced over $6 million in new state funding to:
- Mad River Crisis Triage Center – $5.5 million for a 43-bed facility providing crisis stabilization, sobering, and crisis residential care. The center will include 12 crisis stabilization beds (six for youth), nine mental health beds, 10 dual-diagnosis beds, and 12 sobering cots. It builds on a previous $12.4 million state investment, with additional contributions from Providence, Mad River Hospital, the County of Humboldt, and local donors.
- Sorrel Leaf Healing Center (nonprofit mental health center in Eureka)– $750,000 for the region’s first children’s crisis residential program, slated to open in 2026. Located on a 13-acre therapeutic farm, the 12-bed facility will serve youth ages 7–17, offering 10- to 30-day stays, crisis stabilization, and a mobile crisis response team.
McGuire said the projects represent “results-driven mental health and addiction treatment” that will bring Humboldt County’s total number of crisis stabilization beds to 101.
Both McGuire and Honsal stressed that the new facilities will relieve pressure on local hospitals and emergency departments, which often serve as default destinations for people in mental health crises. “We are not going to solve our addiction crisis…or the mental health crisis in a jail cell,” McGuire said. “We need competent staff in modern facilities, and that is exactly what this investment is about.”
Honsal pointed out, “So, some people say, ‘I don’t care about mental health. It doesn’t affect me. Let me tell you how it’s affecting you. Try to go to an ER on a Friday or Saturday night. It is absolutely ridiculous trying to get help in our facilities because you know it is overwhelmed… .”
Together, the new and expanded facilities represent a long-awaited shift in how the county responds to mental health emergencies. The additional beds and specialized treatment options are expected to ease overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms and reduce the number of people with untreated mental illness held in the jail, while giving residents access to appropriate care when they need it most.
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Again we see Honsal acting like another greasy politician, pretending that he knows what’s best for California. Can we get a sheriff that deserves respect please? Every time I read an article about him I always think back to when he got down on his knees for blm movement because he was scared of antifa.
Please let us know what “you” do for your local community and what “you” do to deserve respect. We’ll wait ……
Hear, hear.
43 million for 20 beds? And right across the street from the main insane asylum. McGuire taking credit for wasting more taxpayer dollars.
I agree with five5. The police are crap. You don’t even have a sheriff. Honsal was NOT elected. If he wants the pay then do the job. Most of humboldt police are posers. My grandpa’s were ww2 vets and good men. AND YPUR POLICE ARE NOTHING LIKE THEM. THESE POLICE HAVE GONE FERAL WOTH NO OVERSITE FROM ANYBODY. THE COUNTY HIRES ASSHOLES.
IMHO:
>”$43.5 million from the state’s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) and matching county funds. The 20-bed crisis stabilization and inpatient psychiatric center is expected to open in 2030 and will replace the current 58-year-old structure on the Humboldt County campus near St. Joseph Hospital.”
So… like, what is wrong with the ‘existing’ facility ?
Putting a ‘mental health’ facility downtown ?
Hmm… No parking since the City Council has implemented their ‘no downtown’ policies.
Patients riding the busses to get there ?
Psychiatric doctors and nurses riding the busses ?
Disturbed people peering out the barred windows at traffic on 5th street ?
That seems like a backwards decision.
Go figure. (Well, I guess it figures to the politicos/contractors anyway.)
Open your eyes fellas. The county desperately needs this facility. And where did you come up with the matching funds from the county idea. Don’t make shot up to justify your lack of compassion.
The building is just a box. It’s the staff that provides the treatment to those who need it. Let’s hope they find the funding to hire enough psychiatrists, nurses and staff to fully operate the facility. Otherwise, it’s just a box
The box that temporarily houses the patient is just as important as the staff who care for and treat said patient. I’d love to be a part of the building/ layout planning… some things need to be considered carefully. This box, if not done with careful consideration, will affect not only the patient- but the staff as well. There is a lot of peer reviewed research on this topic. It’s an area of study I have become very familiar with. You can have the best doctors, nurses and support staff in the country and still fail to provide effective care because of the conditions they’re working in day after day. Environments matter more than we care to understand at the moment.
Are we going to get “the best doctors, nurses and support staff in the country?” That’s a NO. I spent a lot of time working at SV as extra staff. The “real” staff was the laziest, most worthless staff I have ever seen. They sent extra staff to do their jobs (making it impossible to do extra staff jobs) so they could sit around the nurse’s station, watch TV, make personal phone calls, eat, gossip and ANYTHING but their jobs. I finally quit working there. My good friend was BEGGED to come be their director of nursing along with a huge paycheck. After looking over the facility and seeing the absolute disaster of staff the job was given a big F NO. So, I have a confidence in this project of negative one hundred percent.
This is really good news, especially since it will serve children and teenagers. The other side of the corner is I see that 18 beds are going to be cut by the new facility and there will only be 20 instead of 38. I would really like to see Mental Health provide groups for people with mental health issues. There has been none since Covid shut down.
We need teams of mental health professionals and oversight so that patients/clients/“participants”LOL as they now like to call them have recourse when problems with care arise. Much better training needed. Much more practical help like advocacy when dealing with housing and businesses in general these days and managing day to day struggles that people did not used to handle so alone. If you were helicopter parented then ok youre a particular group and need particular help AND for the rest of us stop treating us like that is the case just cause you can’t handle the reality of severe trauma and its effects.
Insurance companies loved the “Quick fixes” : medications, breathing techniques and CBT and DBT and they have their merit and are far over prescribed. News flash, medication has been around forever and hasn’t made a significant difference in the suffering of Countries that practiced it long before the US found it a nice fad.
Spoke with a veteran the other day who said “oh god when those young therapists come round with their breathing techniques” and I knew immediately what he was talking about; not their fault AND to a person with only a hammer in their tool box the whole world is a nail….using those techniques are like fist aid and not appropriate or signficant for a hemorrhage. “Trama informed” my ass! Informed like they got the memo and NOT with the skill set to handle anything of much emotional depth or pain or grief. Go to Disneyland for vacation (as a grown up) and forget about it.
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH is all about symptoms not causes….how you behave, sounds like an 1800s school marm and not a good one. “PARTICIPANTS” as if we need reminding we have to be active in the process and treat us ALL As if we need that reminding when only some do and some need the exact oppposite.
This meme is the gist of most professional therapeutic advice these days and yes it ASSumes people as simple as dogs who BTW are also not so simple.
Also all cognitive based “I think therefore I am” which IS NOT the human experience at all. I am therefore I feel. I think in order to serve my goals which are determined by feelings which are determined by experience which is largely determined by OTHER PEOPLE aka the VILLAGE; where the F are ya’ll? Video gaming?
Didn’t show up in comment above so adding photo of meme here.