CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

County mental health crisis center planned in Victorville

Daily Press - 8/26/2016

Aug. 26--VICTORVILLE -- County Supervisors recently authorized advertising bids for a 16-bed, always-staffed mental health crisis center at the northwest corner of Hesperia Road and Sunhill Drive, the same location where the city's Planning Commission had rejected a smaller private agency clinic that would serve sex offenders.

The county Department of Behavioral Health's$5.9-million clinic will not treat sex offenders but individuals diagnosed with mental health and/or co-occurring substance use disorders, according to a county staff report.

Expected services include assessments, treatment plan development, collateral services, crisis intervention, medication support services and individual and group therapy. Bid advertisements were OK'd Tuesday.

County officials describe the program's goals as to "improve the appropriateness of care, increase access to community based mental health crisis services, reduce recidivism, and mitigate the burden on hospital and law enforcement resources."

The standard length of stay for patients will be two weeks, and officials say the clinic will be fully secured. They also say the city's planning department has reviewed the building elevations for the 10,944-square-foot project and the subsequent comments have been incorporated into the design. Two community meetings on the project were held Aug. 15 in Victorville, according to county spokesman David Wert.

Victorville spokeswoman Sue Jones said, in this instance, the city doesn't have "absolute land-use control within Victorville city limits" since state law allows counties, school districts and the state to pre-empt local authority.

"This type of pre-emption effectively by-passes the public process enabling the City to express an official position in this case," she said.

In February, the city's Planning Commission shot down a proposal by Open Door Counseling Agency to re-locate from Apple Valley to the same location. The proposal, then, was for an 8,700-square-foot building to serve sex offenders and others also under the jurisdiction of the courts and criminal justice agencies.

Shea Johnson may be reached at 760-955-5368 or SJohnson@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DP_Shea.

___

(c)2016 Daily Press, Victorville, Calif.

Visit Daily Press, Victorville, Calif. at www.vvdailypress.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.