2 major milestones reached to open Tri-Cities mental health facility and sobering center

May 6—The Behavioral Health and Recovery Center is one step closer to becoming a reality. They could be offering their first services by the end of the year.

That's because the Benton-Franklin Behavioral Health Advisory Committee is looking into opening what's known as a Sobering Center, separate from the main facilities.

People could voluntarily receive help getting sober and entering into related services at this standalone facility. That would help set the stage for the main recovery center opening later, offering expanded services.

Deputy Administrator Matt Rasmussen told Benton commissioners recently that the committee heard proposals for operating the Recovery Center and sobering center, and are moving forward with plans.

Comprehensive Health Care will now be working with the committee to iron out the details for a contract to operate the recovery center's two main facilities and services.

United Family Center in Kennewick and Comprehensive also will be drawing up proposals for the sobering center, with the final provider to be decided on at a later date.

The committee believes that once these proposals are in and a contractor is selected, opening a sobering center could happen within six months.

Comprehensive selected

After a lengthy process of interviewing providers about services they could offer, the committee recommended moving forward with Comprehensive, which is based in Yakima and has offices in Pasco. They currently manage the Tri-Cities area Crisis Response line.

Benton County commissioners voted unanimously to approve the committee's recommendation. The healthcare provider will now work out the details with a subcommittee, and present a contract by the end of summer.

The contract would see the committee and provider figuring out how services would be billed, with the counties ultimately having to approve costs for anything not covered by medicare, medicaid and private insurance.

Services will be split between two facilities — the old Kennewick General Hospital building at 10th Avenue and Auburn Street and a portion of the old Welch's Juice Factory at 10 E. Bruneau Ave. Both in downtown Kennewick.

That portion won't be in the same building as the Public Market, and will be separate and fenced off. The plant has a single address for all of the buildings on the large property.

"The next step is going to be for a subset, I think five members of the advisory committee, to start contract negotiations for Comprehensive for the four main components for the recovery center," Rasmussen said.

"Crisis stabilization, secure withdrawal, 23-hour observation and in patient residential substance use treatment. Inpatient residential substance use would be at KGH and the other three would be at Bruneau," he said.

He expects it to take about 18 to 24 months to get those services off the ground once they begin the design process.

Rasmussen said he expects to see the contract ready for approval around August.

"It's pretty major progress, obviously for people in the community it can't come fast enough," he said. "The next major milestone will be an execution of a contract and selection of a design-build team in August."

With the approval from the state for the Recovery Center to use a design-build process, it means they can begin work much more quickly.

"That's the beauty of using that process, once the design is to a certain point they can start building," he said.

Sobering Center

The sobering center would be separate from the other services and allow police officers responding to calls to have the option to offer to take someone there to sober up and get help, rather than just make an arrest and take them to jail.

Once there, they would be able to get treatment for help getting and staying sober.

They would likely also have case workers on hand to help direct patients to long-term treatment.

"We could probably get that stood up in a couple of months," Rasmussen told the Herald. "It would be one more tool in the toolbox for law enforcement."

Earlier this year, United Family approached county commissioners at their bi-county meeting with a pitch for bringing a sobering center to their downtown Kennewick facility, which is in the former Tri-City Herald building on Canal Drive.

In March, members of the committee toured two sobering facilities, in Yakima and Spokane, to get an idea of what one could look like in Tri-Cities.

Because sobering centers are voluntary, they're more informal.

Committee members said the ones they toured have beds set up in semi-open areas where people can talk with each other, and don't feel like they're in trouble.

Those who attended the tours gave a glowing recommendation at their March meeting, with members of law enforcement and first responders stressing how big of an impact a sobering facility could have in Tri-Cities.

Mental health tax

Efforts to build better mental health infrastructure in the Tri-Cities began in 2018 when Michele Gerber, who lost her son to drug addiction, created the Benton Franklin Recovery Coalition.

Then the Kennewick Public Hospital Board and Benton County stepped up to provide resources to make a recovery center a reality.

That led to commissioners in both counties approving a 0.1% sales tax increase to pay for operating a new center.

In October 2022, Benton County commissioners authorized buying the 123,000-square-foot old hospital building from LifePoint Health for $1.6 million.

Because there were restrictions on the hospital sale that prohibits inpatient mental health care for longer than 72 hours for adults, the county began looking for a second location for those services. They settled on the Bruneau Avenue facility a month later.

Reporter Annette Cary contributed to this report.

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