NEW HANOVER COUNTY — New Hanover County has started the new year by laying the groundwork for a potential new facility in its programs to curb local homelessness.
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Assistant County Manager Tufanna Bradley spoke to commissioners about the county’s aspirations to develop a residential mental health facility during a Feb. 13 agenda review meeting. The new facility discussion was part of a larger update on a strategy to address homelessness the county adopted in September as part of a joint effort with the City of Wilmington.
A new facility fit into the first recommendation in the plan to expand transitional housing.
Bradley said there are no residential treatment options for people who need psychiatric support in New Hanover County, especially those discharged from acute treatment centers.
She noted former Commissioner Jonathan Barfield aspired to create a residential treatment facility for that purpose — similar to The Healing Place, a 200-bed residential addiction recovery center the county spent $25 million building. The facility allows clients long-term stays while they recover and transition to living independently. The Healing Place, for example, has an average stay of six months.
The county asked Trillium Health Resources, the regional behavioral health contractor for 46 counties, to research models the county could look to for a new treatment center. Trillium pointed to Hopeway, a 36-bed facility in Charlotte, and Skyline Trail, a 110-bed center in Atlanta. Both offer voluntary programs on open campuses. Some county staff visited HopeWay and began discussing possibilities for a local facility, including the number of beds, length of stay, location and resources on campus.
Bradley described all the discussions as “high level” and the next steps would be exploring an agreement with Trillium to develop the concept and visiting Skyline Trail because it offers some clients long-term housing as part of treatment.
“There’s, I’m sure, lots of questions you all have that we won’t have the answers yet because we have not got that deep into it,” Bradley said.
Board Chair Bill Rivenbark asked if a facility would house clients indefinitely.
“What do you do about the person you can’t fix?” Rivenbark asked. “Do they stay there forever?”
Bradley said the facility would be transitional, as opposed to a state facility for permanently housing people with severe mental illness. It would be intended for people already accessing local services while trying to get back on their feet.
The commissioners were broadly supportive of exploring a new treatment center. Commissioner Stephanie Walker said she has seen a gap in care personally because she has a family member with chronic mental health issues.
“We tend to look at substance use and we kind of conflate the two,” she said, also referring to mental health needs.
County Manager Chris Coudriet said the operational cost of the facility should be covered by private insurance and Medicaid, based on an analysis by Trillium. He said a new facility would be regional, just like The Healing Place, because the county would partner with Trillium on the facility. New Hanover contracts with Trillium, as do surrounding counties, to reserve beds at The Healing Place; it acts as an additional funding stream for the facility.
As for a cost estimate, there is none yet, though Coudriet said the facility would be smaller than The Healing Place.
The discussions about a residential facility come on the heels of the county signing off on building a 16-bed medical detox facility in October. It will replace The Harbor, which closed in 2021 and was the only treatment center of its type in the county at the time.
Aside from the talk of an additional facility, Chief Strategy Officer Jennifer Rigby went over updates on the two other prongs of recommendations to address homelessness: improving capacity at the Cape Fear Continuum of Care and supportive regulation for housing.
The Continuum of Care is a member-organization for stakeholders like healthcare agencies and governments trying to prevent homelessness. Rigby said the COC gave the county a $331,000 estimate to expand its staff and improve its data collection systems. Rigby recommended the county strategy office instead work with the COC to identify how much should be invested in the organization and have a recommendation for the board by the end of the fiscal year.
Coudriet told the commissioners at this point the county does not have a financial estimate or recommendation for expanding capacity at the Continuum to Care, adding the county’s team is good at identifying efficient operations.
Commissioner Rob Zapple said the City of Wilmington should share the cost of funding program expansions like adding staff at the Continuum of Care. Rivenbark pushed back on the idea the city would be willing to pay for half of whatever new programs the county wants to add because city residents pay taxes to the county as well.
“So they’ve already paid a part of their share in their taxes,” Rivenbark said, noting it’s a point he and his brother, Charlie — a city councilman — often debate. “So if we’re going to ask them to pay for half of what we’re going to do, that ain’t never gonna happen.”
Commissioner Dane Scalise noted the county estimates it has spent $67 million on addressing and preventing homelessness in the past decade and he believes other governments should share the costs of new program investments.
“I would just offer that whatever the exact dollar amount is, the county has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate its commitment to addressing this issue to the best of our ability,” Scalise said. “And I don’t think that there’s anybody who has come even close to investing the amount of money we have into this issue.”
Rigby said staff has performed more research on a text amendment tabled by the county planning board in April that would ease building new supportive housing developments. She said itcould be brought back to the board for consideration in the spring if it chooses.
Scalise was the only commissioner to comment on the issue, stating he recalled the board wanting to “ditch” the amendment. Coudriet clarified the update was only provided if the board wanted to change its policy and the amendment was only identified as something that could be helpful in the September plan.
[Ed. note: The article has been updated to clarify New Hanover and surrounding counties contract with Trillium to reserve beds at The Healing Place and to correct a spelling error in Dane Scalise’s name. PCD regrets the errors.]
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