Dear Community Members,
Please be advised that the NAMI CC (National Alliance on Mental Illness, Contra Costa) office will be closed tomorrow morning, July 8th, until 12 PM in support of the California Coalition for Care in advocating for the Oakley Delta Road Project.
We ask that you join us tomorrow at 9:00 AM for the hearing at the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Meeting, 1025 Escobar St., Martinez, CA. Join us virtually, if not in-person, by Zoom (https://cccounty-us. zoom.us/j/89586041575#success) or phone (888-278-0254 access code 843298#).
Join us in speaking up to save the $43+ Million Behavioral Healthcare Infrastructure Grant For Oakley Delta Road Project. We have worked for years together with the California Coalition for Care and dreamed that a project such as this could be built in East County. The East County Project, also known as the Delta Recovery Center, is currently in jeopardy and is located at the edge of Oakley. It was previously awarded $43 million dollars as a launch-ready project as required for submission. We researched extensively in Contra Costa based on years of experience in community planning and recent needs assessments for the specialty behavioral health population. Additionally, we placed a strong emphasis on equity and East County disparities in our planning.
If you have any concerns on July 8th, please do not hesitate to call us at (925) 942-0767. Though the office will be closed during the morning, we will resume operations on July 8th as usual at 12 PM.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Sincerely,
The NAMI CC Team
gro.atsocartnociman@ofni
(925) 942-0767
More About The Cause
The California Coalition for Care includes multiple individual grassroots and formal organizations from across the state. We represent families, peers, providers, and community members who support the reform and transformation of the California Behavioral Health system. Many of us are current or former members of local mental health boards and commissions, and we have had interactions with local, state, and national committees over the past 20 to 25 years.
We work with all layers of local, state, and federal policy makers and stakeholders for the collective vision of home, health, and healing to finally be achieved for all who live heroically with severe mental illnesses and/or substance use disorders. We do not believe that California has achieved its promise to our loved ones, families, and communities, which is why we fully support the current behavioral health reforms of Proposition 1.
We support all efforts to strengthen and expand equity, access, and inclusion for all California residents and communities. Our primary focus is a fully funded continuum of care, encompassing both hospital-based and community-based services. We also support a tiered system of “Housing That Heals” that will provide both recovery and medically necessary treatment and care that will help prevent homelessness, incarceration, unnecessary institutionalization, and suffering.
We are authentic “Partners in Care” who demand the right to treatment before tragedy. We will no longer settle for a system that is designed to fail, jail, treat, and street our friends and loved ones. We support building a compassionate continuum of care for ALL families like ours.
Who are families like ours? We are those whose loved ones have developed no-fault severe brain disorders that can rob their voluntary decision-making capacity to seek safety and care. We are those told we would be lucky to get our adult children into the criminal justice system because those are the beds that never say “no.” We drive across the state to visit our children in locked facilities and state hospitals because there are no alternative options in our communities.
We desperately try to prevent our loved ones from being forced into jail cells, streets, or coffins. We are housing providers, unpaid caregivers, and “curbside caregivers” who search the streets calling out the names of our beloved family members.
We are an action partnership that will work with local, state, and federal officials to educate about the discrimination that is driving despair, disparities, disability, and death of people who live heroically with severe mental illnesses and substance use disorders. We achieve this by mobilizing other organized supporters and the vast majority of Californians who already share our concerns and values.
Below is some of the data that supports the need for Contra Costa to accept every penny of state money, especially in East County:
- 39% of Medi-Cal beneficiaries live in East County
- 40% of CCBHS consumers live in East County
- One of the primary findings from the community listening sessions we did for the opioid settlement funds was for more services in East County.
- We heard stories of people who tried to access detox beds in West County, but by the time they arrived, the beds were no longer available.
- The County spends at least $19 million per year on out-of-county placements, with over 200 individuals placed out of county at any given time.
- More than half of these individuals are in locked settings from San Diego to Humboldt. (Source: BHCIP Needs Assessment, CARE Court planning data)
- There are over 2,500 individuals in the County jail who are referred for detention mental health services annually. Approximately 40 of these clients require services in a locked and/or residential setting each year. (Source: BHCIP Needs Assessment) Due to systemic racial biases, many of these individuals are from BIPOC Communities.
- There are approximately 1,600 individuals with serious mental illness (predominantly schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders) who are experiencing crisis, hospitalization, and incarceration, who require intensive specialty mental health services to address their mental health needs (Source: CARE Court planning data)
Contact us for further information: Gigi Crowder (gro.atsocartnociman@igig), Teresa Pasquini, and Lauren Rettagliata (moc.liamg@slaehtahtgnisuoh). Thank you!