County officials took “a good first step” in tackling the problem of recidivism among the area’s homeless and mentally ill population, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors announced at a meeting earlier this month.
On April 17, the supervisors listened to a presentation comparing the costs of incarcerating homeless and/or mentally ill people and providing community-based “stabilizing services,” such as housing and counseling.
The supervisors asked county staff last October to create a cost analysis in response to a May 2011 report from the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury, titled Homeless Mentally Ill Indigent Recidivism: This Recycling Is Not Good For the Community.
Santa Barbara County Assistant CEO Dennis Bozanich started off by giving a snapshot of the county’s homeless population. According to a Common Ground Santa Barbara survey conducted last year, the majority of homeless people encountered were considered “vulnerable with high mortality risk.” Of those individuals, more than 40 percent were considered severely mentally ill, and nearly two thirds of that group suffered from co-occurring illnesses, had spent time in jail, or both.
To determine the costs of incarceration versus treating and housing these individuals, county staffers gathered fiscal data from numerous departments providing services, such as Alcohol Drug Mental Health Services, the Sheriff’s Department, and the county housing authority
The staffers found it costs approximately $33,560 annually to house and treat one person in the community. The cost to do so in the jail was estimated at $44,572 per person each year.
“That produces a 25 percent gap between jail and stabilizing services,” Bozanich said.
However, he explained that the data didn’t account for the challenges of reaching out to offenders who are homeless and mentally ill.
Most pressing is the fact that there’s currently a very limited amount of housing available to this population in the community.
“That $11,000 [difference] is presuming there’s a bed available, a slot available,” Bozanich said.
Other concerns include the effectiveness of mental health treatment and offenders’ ability to transition back into society.
“How many times someone might need to cycle through these services obviously has a significant impact on the cost per person,” he said.
The staff report concluded—based on treatment effectiveness rates and the lack of funding available for these services—“it would not result in an equivalent savings to the County to simply fund supportive services.”
The report suggested the county continue to streamline services and referrals to improve parts of the system it can impact.
Sheriff Bill Brown has told the Board of Supervisors numerous times the jail has become “the de facto mental health institution for the county.”
Supervisors and staffers brought up that statement, as well as construction of the North County Jail, at the April 17 meeting. The county is still wrangling funds for that project and has set a tentative completion date of 2017.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino suggested using open space in the Goleta jail as “a hybrid facility for mentally ill who are incarcerated,” once other inmates are moved north
First District Supervisor Salud Carbajal agreed, adding, “We need to try to find a way to not have our mentally ill go to jail. We need to find a different paradigm of treating these people.”
The statement triggered applause from the audience, which consisted mostly of family members of the incarcerated and mental health professionals.
Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf called the proposal “an interesting idea that can be pursued,” but said, “honestly we can’t wait that long, and I think our state government realizes that.”
Third District Supervisor Doreen Farr topped these comments with one of her own.
“I feel this report doesn’t go far enough. I would say it’s a good first effort,” she said. “For me, 25 percent is a whole lot of money to be spending the wrong way to not help people in the way they need to be served.”
Some members of the public also disagreed, in part, with the report’s findings.
“Much in this report is very, very good and very helpful. … The problem with the report is that it is not complete,” said Mike Foley, executive director of Casa Esperanza Homeless Center and co-executive director of Bringing Our Community Home.
Foley asked the board to send the report back to staff and require that “all stakeholders from the community” be involved in the process.
“The report concludes that, ‘because of treatment effectiveness and variety of funding sources it would not result in an equivalent savings to the County to fund supportive services.’ Information pouring in from around the country shows this is not accurate. That information is absent from the report,”
Foley said.
The data compiled in the county report, he said, are only relevant for new construction. They don’t take into account other forms of housing, such as the scattered site model, which places clients in existent housing. This model costs $28,000 per year as opposed to $32,000 per year.
The report also doesn’t take into account the cost of arrests and bookings, and court and ambulance fees, he said.
Later, in an interview with the Sun, Foley said he’s optimistic about the county’s willingness to work with community-based partners. He said Bringing Our Community Home is getting ready to present county officials with “a new paradigm” for treating and housing the mentally ill and homeless, hopefully sometime in May.
At the April 17 meeting, Farr asked county staffers to come back before the board once they had met with Bringing Our Community Home, Families ACT!, and other stakeholders in the community, including judges and the court system. m
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 3, 2012.