For more than two years, I have sponsored and championed one of the most important public health efforts of my time in office: opening the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery at 2200 NW 7th Avenue, a place that will treat people living with serious mental illness instead of warehousing them in our jail. This Tuesday, June 16, that work comes before the full Board of County Commissioners, and I am asking our community to show up and be heard.
This story began over twenty years ago with the advocacy of Judge Steve Leifman. Miami-Dade County voters first spoke on the need in November 2004, when we approved $22.1 million in general obligation bonds to build a mental health diversion facility, an alternative to incarceration for people with serious mental illness who would otherwise sit in jail awaiting their day in court. Over the years that followed, the County and its partners added capital funding until roughly $51.1 million had been invested in the building. In 2007, the Florida Legislature leased the property to the County for one dollar a year for 99 years, expressly for our expanded jail diversion program. Nearly two decades later, the building is complete and finally ready to fulfill its purpose.
What comes before the Board this Tuesday, June 16th is the operating plan that brings it to life. In its first phase, the Center will open with 147 beds, offering crisis stabilization, detoxification, short-term and longer-term residential treatment, primary care, and transitional housing. WestCare, a behavioral health provider serving South Florida since 1973, will deliver the core clinical services. The Advocate Program, with a 50-year record of connecting justice-involved residents to care, will provide wraparound services. The County’s New Direction program and the Homeless Trust complete the continuum of care. Much of this is funded through opioid settlement dollars, an item I also worked on and sponsored which is projected to exceed $77 million over 18 years, with roughly $47 million dedicated to operations at the Center, and three years of funding which is already identified.
None of this would be possible without Judge Steve Leifman, whose passion, persistence and more than twenty years of dedication to mental health diversion have shaped this effort, secured funding, and changed the minds and hearts of policymakers. His perseverance has been a gift to our entire community. I am also deeply grateful to Jackson Health System for its steadfast support and partnership, helping make comprehensive, accountable care at the Center a reality for the people who need it most.
In the spirit of transparency and public notice, I want residents to know that my original framework carries forward in full, and that at my urging a handful of additional accountability measures have been incorporated into what we will vote on this Tuesday. This includes:
An independent biannual review of the Center’s operations and clinical service delivery model, conducted by Jackson Health System or its designee.
Issuance of a Request for Proposals for outpatient treatment services on the seventh floor.
A centralized recordkeeping and outcomes-monitoring system for services provided at the Center.
A biannual report reviewing the Center’s operations.
Reporting of administrative and operational adjustments at the Center to the Behavioral Health Advisory Board.
Evaluation of the Center’s utilization by individuals experiencing homelessness, with consideration of potential renegotiation of Homeless Trust funding.
A new County policy ensuring core County services remain fully funded, so that funding for the Center supplements rather than supplants those services.
This item reflects two years of listening, negotiating, and strengthening the plan so that it is fiscally responsible, accountable, and built to last.
But now that the drafting is complete we need you to come to County Hall this Tuesday, June 16, to the Miami-Dade County Commission Chambers at the Stephen P. Clark Center, 111 NW 1st Street in downtown Miami, and stand with us in support of opening the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery. For too long, our jail has been the largest psychiatric facility in our community, at enormous cost to taxpayers. This center is not an added expense; it is how we stop paying for the same crisis over and over again. It is our chance to offer treatment instead of a cell, dignity instead of a revolving door, and recovery instead of crisis.
Twenty years of residents, advocates, judges, clinicians, and impacted families have brought us to this moment. Let’s finish what our community started twenty years ago and open the doors. I hope to see you on Tuesday.
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