A new assisted living facility with 86 beds for adults with behavioral health challenges will open on Birchwood Avenue in Bellingham this month.
The not-for-profit organization behind the new Lake Whatcom Residential and Treatment Center (LWC), at 1200 Birchwood Ave., is an established provider of mental health and residential services for adults in Whatcom County. It has multiple other facilities in the area. After purchasing the 3-acre property for $5.6 million in 2023, LWC used $1 million from Whatcom County’s Sales and Use Tax for Housing and Related Services fund to help pay for building renovations.
The building, which has multiple wings in a floorplan shape of an “H,” was once a nursing home. The single-level building has since sat mostly vacant until LWC bought it. Residents will be placed in wings based on the level of care they need in either shared or single rooms, although most of the rooms are shared.
A two-person bedroom at the Lake Whatcom Center. The new site was once a nursing home that was vacant for years until recent renovations. (Andy Bronson/Cascadia Daily News)
The building features hundreds of windows, as well as an activity room, a workout area, a medical exam room and outdoor spaces. The site will be staffed 24 hours a day and by nurses eight hours a day, seven days a week, said Linda Dunn, the new facilities supervisor.
LWC, a certified community behavioral health clinic that has been operating in Whatcom County since 1968, already operates a 67-bed assisted living facility northeast of Lake Whatcom off Agate Heights Road for people with severe and persistent mental illnesses. The center also runs a 12-bed assisted living facility on Alabama Street in Bellingham.
Additionally, the organization runs eight independent-living apartment complexes, an outpatient office on Meridian Street, a multi-bed residential treatment facility off Baker Creek Place, and a 16-bed residential behavioral health facility on W. Maple Avenue focused on recovery and transitioning out of institutional settings. In total, LWC currently serves more than 800 people.
In addition to new residents, the new Birchwood facility will house residents currently in the Agate and Alabama locations. Roughly 65 current residents in those facilities are scheduled to move into the new Birchwood facility on March 18, Dunn said.
Whatcom County Council members Elizabeth Boyle, far right, and Kaylee Galloway, back right, listen to Lake Whatcom Center Executive Director Jenny Billings, left, during the tour. (Andy Bronson/Cascadia Daily News)
The subsequent vacated space in the existing facilities will eventually be used for substance use recovery, according to the center’s executive director, Jenny Billings. The future expanded capacity for substance use recovery may add up to 48 beds “at a time when there are only 16 recovery residence beds in our community,” Billings said in a statement.
The 0.1% county sales tax that was used to support the new facility is a fund that must be used for projects supporting mental health facilities or affordable housing for people earning less than 60% of the area median income. The grant covered about a third of the cost of the new Birchwood endeavor, Billings said Tuesday.
“As we, community, are talking about the justice system, the behavioral care system, I think this is all a part of that,” Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu said Tuesday, standing inside the new facility.
A large majority of the nonprofit’s revenue for patient care — about $10 million — comes from Medicare and Medicaid, according to its publicly available tax documents. An additional $2 million was from other payors.
The treatment and residential center’s revenue and expenses have more than doubled in the last decade, reaching more than $14 million in total revenue in calendar year 2023, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings. The organization has broken even each year in the last decade, except for fiscal years ending in June 2023 and 2024, the last available years of tax filings.
After the site’s March 18 move-in day, LWC will have about 20 beds still available at the new facility.
Owen Racer is a Report for America corps member who covers health care and public health in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Reach him at owenracer@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 101. Learn more and donate at cascadiadaily.com/rfa.