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Mental health facility coming to Basin

Desert Trail, The (Twenty-Nine Palms, CA) - 6/16/2016

JOSHUA TREE - If all goes as planned, the Morongo Basin will, by Spring 2018, have a ten-bed facility for the treatment of adults suffering from substance abuse and mental health disorders.

It will be built with proceeds from a $5.6 million grant. the grant was received from the California State Treasurer's office through the California Health Facilities Finance Authority.

San Bernardino County Community Development and Housing Director Dena Fuentes gave a presentation on the proposed Crisis Residential Treatment Center at the Monday, June 13, meeting of the Morongo Basin Municipal Advisory Council.

She also got feedback from those in attendance on what the facility should look like and promised to return to another council meeting when a location for the facility is chosen.

Officials, she noted, are working with a local real estate agent and looking at one to two acre sites in areas zoned for multi-family housing and commercial use.

She and other staff members brought renderings of six possible facility designs and handed out stickers for residents to vote on their favorites. Southwest style designed dominated the vote.

The Morongo Basin, she said, was targeted as a site for a new facility because of a lack of facilities, an increase in demand for psychiatric services here and the distance to other facilities.

Loma Linda University Medical Center, she noted, is 65 miles away while Arrowhead Regional Medical Center is 75 miles away.

"We felt that the Morongo Basin was an area to expand into," she said.

Once open, the facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and provide housing, psychiatric and medical support, clinical assessment and therapy to voluntary short term patients for up to 30 days.

The facility will have full-time security on site.

Services will also include clinical assessments, therapy, life skills coaching, coping techniques and recovery education.

Staff will include a clinic supervisor, a physician on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, one clinician for every four patients and one registered nurse, psychiatric technician or licensed vocation nurse on staff at all times.

Patients will be referred by law enforcement personnel, hospital emergency rooms, other medical clinics and even family members.

With the grant awarded in May, Fuentes and her staff will spend June through August doing community outreach and acquiring a site for the facility.

They will complete design work and select a contractor in November and December. Construction is expected to being in January or March 2017 and the facility is expected to open in Spring 2018.

"Well the need is certainly great," Wonder Valley resident Almut Fleck said.