Tag Archives: mental health

County can’t yet say who will run it but officials answering as many questions as they can about possible Broadway Crisis Care Center

Posted on by
8

The Kirkland center

There are many questions surrounding the plan to locate one of five county Crisis Care Centers at Broadway and Union. One of the biggest — who will run it? — can’t be answered yet due to county procurement policies.

A spokesperson for the King County Department of Community and Human Services tells CHS they can’t reveal if the Arizona-headquartered service provider Connections that is operating its transformed Kirkland location as the first in the planned $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county has made a bid to also operate the planned Broadway center. Continue reading →

‘Placing it in the heart of the city makes sense’ — State, county, and city leaders working to shape Broadway Crisis Care Center plan

Posted on by
71

The former Polyclinic facility

State Rep. Shaun Scott sees it as an opportunity for three levels of local government to come together to push for the right thing. Folks at the King County Department of Community and Human Services feel like they are running to catch up with the questions and concerns.

“I see it as my role as a representative of the 43rd Legislative District to be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” Scott tells CHS about his effort to organize a town hall Monday night on Capitol Hill to raise support for what the first-year state legislator says is a desperately needed resource that will be ready to serve the entire community.

“Placing it in the heart of the city makes sense,” Scott said.

CHS reported here on the plans for Monday night’s Crisis Care Center Townhall as Scott will be joined by Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck and county officials at Capitol Hill art bar Vermillion in a session hoped to drum up support — and counter business community-led opposition — to a major mental health Crisis Care Center being planned for Broadway and Union.

Monday’s planned event comes after the county met with significant pushback from the area business community over its $50 million proposal to acquire the former Polyclinic building at the corner of Broadway and Union to create an emergency and walk-in clinic part of a voter-approved, $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county. Continue reading →

Scott and Rinck holding ‘Crisis Care Center Townhall’ on Capitol Hill

Posted on by
52

The proposed Broadway site

There have been few public updates on the King County Department of Community and Human Services plan to open a mental health Crisis Care Center at Broadway and Union but two Seattle political leaders are collaborating on an event next week on Capitol Hill to raise support for the project.

“7/7 @ 7PM is our chance to lift every voice in support of a behavioral health crisis center that will help the Capitol Hill community and its people,” reads the social media post from Rep. Shaun Scott. “Come ready to have a good time at Vermillion with community leaders who support an inclusive Seattle.”

The Crisis Care Center Townhall will take place Monday night at the 11th Ave art bar and will include Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, according to the flyer.

We have inquiries out to Scott and Rinck to learn more. King County DCHS is also listed as part of the event as is comedian Brett Hamil.

“Drinks + Comedy + Civics,” the pitch reads. Continue reading →

County working on next steps in Capitol Hill Crisis Care Center plan

Posted on by
2

King County officials are working on plans for a public meeting to answer questions and concerns around the proposed mental health Crisis Care Center at Broadway and Union.

CHS reported here on pushback over public safety concerns against the planned facility in a meeting with business and property owners as Department of Community and Human Services officials made the case for the emergency and walk-in clinic that would be part of a $1.25 billion network of five facilities across the county.

The Capitol Hill Community Council says it is working with the county to set up the next meeting with wider community goals and the organization has launched a survey to gather feedback in advance of the session. Continue reading →

‘In crisis’ — County makes case for Crisis Care Center on Broadway amid biz owner pushback

Posted on by
79

Around 50 people attended last week’s meeting (Image: CHS)

By Matt Dowell

King County officials reaffirmed the value of a planned mental health Crisis Care Center on Broadway at a community meeting last week but members of the public pushed back — “Why here?”

Officials tell CHS the meeting was the next step in a process they say is both just beginning — and well under way. There is an offer for the property on the table. More community meetings are being planned.

Meanwhile, a letter sent to District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth protesting the consideration of the Broadway at Union property for the new center has made waves in the neighborhood business community.

Meeting attendees inside Seattle U’s Wyckoff Auditorium and organized by the county and the GSBA chamber of commerce Thursday pushed for keeping the crisis center out of Capitol Hill and shifting the focus to a new location. Ice cream entrepreneur Molly Moon Neitzel took the mic.

“I’m Molly Moon, I’ve lived on Capitol Hill for 22 years. I have gone from a partying kid on one side of the Hill to a mom on the other side of the Hill. I’ve [operated] a thriving business in the Pike/Pine corridor for 16 years. I located that business there in a thriving time for the Hill. Our neighborhood is in crisis.”

“I think probably everyone in this room supports the mission of the Crisis Care Centers and believes that they need to exist,” Neitzel said. “The need for first responders to have the ability to take these folks in need to a Crisis Care Center — we can all give a standing ovation to that mission.”

“Do they need to come to a neighborhood in absolute dire crisis for the last five, six, seven years? No they do not.”

“I would encourage you to look at a site that is in a neighborhood that doesn’t have so much crisis going on right now.”

CHS broke the news last week on the county’s plans to open a facility in the former Polyclinic building at Broadway and Union as part of the $1.25 billion Crisis Care Centers measure approved by voters in April 2023. The nine-year levy calls for a network of five facilities that provide walk-in behavioral health care. The first opened in Kirkland in March. Continue reading →

King County planning Crisis Care Center at Broadway and Union — UPDATE

Posted on by
132

Capitol Hill property owners, businesses, and residents are preparing to push back on a planned King County mental health crisis center on Broadway.

Plans for a $1.25 billion network of five crisis care centers across the county include the former Polyclinic building at Broadway and Union, CHS has learned.

County officials are planning to hold a hastily organized meeting with community members Thursday.

Opposition to the Broadway center is already in place as rumors of the planned location have grown in recent months.

The massive 114,000-square-foot Polyclinic building now part of the Optum rebrand has been on the market for lease. A “rebuild letter,” also known as a “Zoning Verification Letter” and issued to confirm whether a property can be rebuilt to its original condition and use, was filed for the property in February. The letters are typically part of the process around a commercial property’s sale or refinancing. Continue reading →

First county Crisis Care Center opening in Kirkland with plans for $1.25B network in place by 2030

Posted on by
4

(Image: King County)

Proposals are due by March 21st for providers to be part of King County’s $1.25 billion crisis care center program as the location of the first of five planned new facilities will be in Kirkland.

Connections Health Solutions will run the first facility in the program that is envisioned to create a network of five walk-in centers across the county by 2030.

Connections and the City of Kirkland opened the crisis center in August 2024. Its selection into the program enables Connections to purchase the $39 million building while providing funding to operate a 24/7 mental health care facility. Service is planned to ramp up this spring. Continue reading →

Garfield High School receives $500K mental health services funding boost from city

Posted on by

Garfield High School, the largest public high school serving Capitol Hill and the Central District, has been awarded a $500,000 grant from the city’s Department of Education and Early Learning to bolster the 23rd Ave campus’s mental health services.

The school says the funding will help add an additional full-time mental health professional based at the Garfield Teen Health Center operated by Seattle Children’s/Odessa Brown Clinic. As part of the grand, University of Washington doctoral students in psychiatry will also do field work at Garfield and a staff member from the Urban League will help manage and coordinate the new resources. Continue reading →

Seattle Police begin city’s crackdown on public drug use with reported arrests, 13 ‘referred to the case managers’

Posted on by

The Seattle Police Department says it started enforcement of the city’s new public drug use law with “enforcement operations” in two familiar crime hot spots this weekend — Little Saigon and the downtown core around 3rd and Pine.

SPD Chief Adrian Diaz said the operations were underway in the areas ave 12th Ave and South Jackson in the International District, and on 2nd 3rd near Pike and Pine downtown.

“This is not about arresting people,” Diaz said. “We want to make sure that people are taking advantage of services. Right now, we know 13 people were referred to the case managers and that’s really what’s important to us.” Continue reading →

Mayor says Seattle’s ‘third public safety department’ ready to join police and firefighters in protecting the city with ‘welfare checks’ and help for people suffering mental crisis

Posted on by

(Image: CHS)

A small, $1.5 million pilot program hoped to help be the start of bigger changes to how the city responds to mental health and drug crisis 911 calls is set to launch next month and Mayor Bruce Harrell is calling for more money so support the department behind the program next year.

Harrell marked the formation of what the administration is calling “Seattle’s third public safety department” saying the new organization will align “existing community-focused and non-police public safety investments and programs” as it joins the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Fire Department in protecting the city.

Community Assisted Response and Engagement — or, in the Harrell administration’s love for warm-sounding acronyms, CARE —  is part of the next step in what the city has been calling a “dual dispatch” approach to providing better social support and resources while freeing up police to handle higher priority calls.

Harrell says he is calling for a $6 million increase in the department’s funding as part of his proposed budget for next year.

The pilot launching in October will transition the former Community Safety and Communications Center to include the deployment of social workers and behavioral health specialists with Seattle Police Department officers for a limited set of circumstances when mental health expertise is needed and the situation is deemed safe for non-police intervention.

The launch comes amid increased criticism of Chief Adrian Diaz and skepticism around traditional policing in the city sparked by recent recorded comments from Seattle Police officers illustrating troubling biases and cynicism including the body cam video that captured a police union vice president making flippant remarks about Jaahnavi Kandula after she was struck and killed by a speeding police officer.

It also arrives as city leaders have signed the department up for a possible crackdown on public drug use in the city.

Backers hope CARE and efforts like “dual dispatch” will be the start of needed change and could help the city provide more substantial responses to the flood of so-called “welfare check” calls that come into 911 dispatchers from Capitol Hill and across the city every day.

Under the pilot, 911 calls dispatched involving someone suffering a mental crisis will include the specialists arriving with police at situations that don’t involve someone who is injured or sick, an “imminent danger,” weapons, or narcotics. Continue reading →