New mental health-law enforcement team hits the streets

A new partnership between Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services and the Eureka Police Department aims to strike a better balance between enforcement and care when it comes to the city’s severely mentally challenged homeless.

The Mobile Intervention and Services Team (MIST), which began working this week, pairs a Eureka Police Officer and a licensed DHHS clinician together to proactively engage homeless people who are suffering from severe mental illness, assess what kind of help they might need, and refer them to available services or help them find immediate assistance — should the individual choose to accept such help, according to a DHHS press release. Then the third member of the team, a DHHS mental health case manager, follows up with the individual and helps to further assess needs and provide continued care.

“It’s building on what we’re beginning to understand about the populations of homeless in the city of Eureka and we’re using the team as an on-the-ground effort to get a better idea about who these individuals are and what their needs might be,” DHHS Director Phillip Crandall said. “It’s an investigative team and the idea is to initially work with the homeless that seem to be struggling due to a mental illness and are more likely to be preyed upon by other people.”

The team, which patrols certain areas of the Eureka about 16 hours a week, is a departure from the current model of enforcement, EPD Capt. Steve Watson said.

Watson, who helps to oversee the program, said that prior to MIST, police officers typically responding to calls regarding an individual who appeared to be mentally ill or abusing substances or both were frequently put in the position of having to determine if that person would be best served by a trip to either the Humboldt County jail or Sempervirens Psychiatric Health Facility. With the new team, which combines the on-the-ground familiarity and authority of law enforcement with the mental health expertise of a DHHS clinician, the determination is more accurate and the range of possible treatments expanded, before the complaint call even comes in, Watson said.

“Those emergency options are still available, but now there are more options,” he said. “What’s going to change is the hand-off and follow-up. And that’s something where law enforcement has been weak — you have an intervention in the field that results in incarceration or at the psychiatric health facility and that’s the end. We walk away and aren’t so much involved in the process afterward — the left hand wasn’t working with the right hand so smoothly. Now that we’ll be working side by side with mental health services, the communication will be better and the effort will be more focused.”

The improvements have already begun, according to Kelly Johnson, a DHHS mental health clinician. Johnson, who started going out on patrol with EPD Officer Louis Altic on Monday, said the duo has already encountered and engaged with several people the program was created for.

“(Friday) was our fourth time out, and you know, it’s actually been pretty successful,” Johnson said. “We’ve made contact with multiple people that have been on DHHS and EPD’s radar — folks that have fallen through the cracks and haven’t been able to access services or receive follow-up services.”

Since the engagement is proactive, Johnson noted, meaning that it takes place before a complaint call is received or a crime is committed, homeless individuals can choose whether or not to accept help. She said that thus far reaction has been positive, partially because of the combination of services that the team brings.

“Most people have been pretty receptive,” Johnson said. “I have the feeling that when you’re with a law enforcement officer people are more likely to talk to you. We’re clear with people that they’re not in trouble and they’re free to go at any time, but having someone in a uniform with you allows access to people who maybe wouldn’t be as likely to respond to a mental health professional.”

For instance, Johnson pointed to a man the team was able to help on Friday — after a few days of making contact with him and building trust beforehand — by finding him temporary housing for 10 days and also be put in contact with the team’s DHHS case manager, Moonie Higginson.

“I don’t press too hard,” Johnson said. “I’m coming from a social work perspective where I believe that if I’m forcing someone to do something it won’t be successful. Right now I’m building relationships and trust, and I think that’s the best way to help.”

Temporary housing wasn’t the optimal solution for that individual — “He needs housing that’s more permanent,” she said — but it’s preferred to what might have happened otherwise — arrest, incarceration and then back on the streets. And more permanent solutions in regard to housing goes is in the future, Crandall said, along with possible expansion of the program if it’s successful.

Now that new funding has been made available through the Affordable Care Act and the Mental Heatlh Services Act, Crandall said DHHS is shooting to have the Multiple Assistance Center and an intake-assessment unit available to serve single individuals and their housing needs by summertime, but for the time being the Mobile Intervention and Services Team is a step in the right direction.

“The first step is to form the core team — the law enforcement mental health team — and to hit the streets and see what we learn based on the expanded services and support that team will offer,” Crandall said. “Then in the future we can connect that with the intake and assessment capacity at the MAC and hopefully we’ll have the ability to assess and stabilize and then connect with other providers in the community.”

Contact Aaron West at 707-441-0509.