A brand new enlargement to Bexar County’s Applewhite Restoration Middle opened Thursday on the South Facet, including 130 beds to the county’s solely residential campus devoted to treating individuals with each psychological sickness and substance use problems.
Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents Precinct 1, the place the power sits, referred to as the $28 million an funding “in individuals, households and in our complete neighborhood.”
She mentioned the challenge is a crucial step towards addressing behavioral-health wants within the county.
“Far too typically, people in our justice system are coping with psychological sickness, and plenty of instances they return into jail many times and grow to be repeat offenders,” Clay-Flores mentioned. “ This facility provides probationers combating schizophrenia, bipolar dysfunction, and main temper problems the prospect to heal, stabilize and succeed.”
The Applewhite campus has lengthy served as one of many county’s few therapy alternate options to jail, housing court-ordered shoppers for rehabilitation underneath the Group Supervision and Corrections Division.
The Commissioners Courtroom superior plans to renovate the power after buying the land in 2023 utilizing federal American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA {dollars}, which was meant to stabilize the economic system publish COVID-19 pandemic.
Development started final fall. The location consists of three specialised residential items — a Substance Abuse Therapy Facility for dependancy restoration, a transitional offender program for shoppers nearing neighborhood reentry, and the Twin-Analysis Residential Program (DDRP) unit for people managing each psychological well being and substance use problems.
The brand new enlargement primarily will increase capability for the twin analysis program, operated in partnership between the Texas Correctional Workplace on Offenders with Medical and Psychological Impairments and the Middle for Well being Care Providers. This system supplies psychological well being and substance use therapy to probationers residing with co-occurring problems, serving as a safe, court-ordered different to incarceration.
Its objective is to assist shoppers obtain stability, preserve sobriety and reintegrate as productive members of the neighborhood, mentioned Orion Wirick, medical administrator for CHCS, in a press release.
Jarvis Anderson, chief probation officer and director of the county division, mentioned Applewhite is one in all solely three dual-diagnosis residential applications of its type in Texas and accepts shoppers from throughout the state via the legal justice system. There are comparable services in Dallas and Harris counties.
The Applewhite campus beforehand had area for about 300 residents; the brand new addition will increase general capability to roughly 430. Anderson mentioned the single-occupancy beds within the enlargement will be reconfigured to accommodate as much as 260 individuals if demand rises, utilizing bunk-style setups.
The brand new area will start admitting residents throughout the subsequent month. About 75 individuals are ready within the Bexar County Jail for placement within the DDRP program, he mentioned.
“It’s gonna take a while,” Anderson mentioned. “The curriculum is 120 to 180 days. We will scale back that time period or enhance that time period. We provide outpatient applications earlier than they get right here and supply outpatient applications after they depart.”
That before-and-after care is a part of the division’s holistic strategy to rehabilitation, centered on offering continuity of care relatively than one-time intervention. Individuals who want extra help can return to this system with out restarting the consumption course of, a mannequin that Anderson described as important for long-term restoration.
Bexar County Decide Peter Sakai mentioned the enlargement displays a broader shift in how the county approaches psychological well being and justice by emphasizing rehabilitation over incarceration.
“In a restorative justice mannequin for which I’m dedicated to as a county choose, you first received to get ’em clear and sober. Two is, you bought to cope with psychological well being points, particularly if it’s a trauma knowledgeable difficulty,” Sakai mentioned. “What we’ve discovered is, as soon as we get them on this path of stability, this path of sobriety, then they will grow to be productive residents.”
Whereas the power focuses on serving to people obtain stability and sobriety, Sakai mentioned a broader profit is discount of overcrowding within the county’s jail system — the place many inmates battle with the identical points this system is designed to deal with.
“We have to get these individuals in jail out of jail which are sitting there, particularly low-level offenders and other people which are unhoused, we have to transfer them out of our jails and into different services,” he mentioned.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar mentioned the brand new facility may assist ease the pressure on jail area whereas offering acceptable therapy to these in want.
“It’s nicely established that there are a variety of individuals inside our jail inhabitants who’re solely right here for need of extra acceptable choices, similar to psychological well being beds or dependancy therapy applications,” Salazar mentioned in a press release. “Though I don’t but understand how many individuals this facility will influence, something we will do to make extra acceptable use of our jail area will assist.”
Clay-Flores mentioned she hopes the enlargement marks the start of a broader, long-term funding in psychological well being infrastructure. The county, she mentioned, nonetheless faces ready lists for therapy beds and restricted area for long-term residential care.
“It is a nice starting, however we have to proceed to battle,” she mentioned. “There continues to be individuals rotting in jail. These individuals aren’t simply these individuals — they’re somebody’s youngster, somebody’s sister, somebody’s husband.”
Clay-Flores mentioned she plans to proceed pushing for added psychological well being beds and comparable services throughout the county.
“Within the state of Texas, our jails are the primary supplier of psychological well being companies, which is completely ridiculous,” she mentioned. “We’d like extra services like this, and we want extra psychological well being beds, and I proceed to battle for extra beds. That’s one thing I’ve been saying from day one, and it’s one thing I’m going to proceed to do till I retire, which is not any time quickly.”
