- Dayton, Ohio. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently praised the opening of a new crisis stabilization center in Dayton, saying: “What we’re seeing today really does make Montgomery County a leader in the state and it really is one more major step forward to achieve what we want to achieve in Ohio … to have a system if your son or daughter or a family member is in crisis, there is a place for that person to go.” As Sydney Dawes reports for Dayton Daily News, a person in the middle of a mental health crisis can be taken to the center, which is staffed with nurses, psychologists, and social workers, instead of, for example, the local jail. Dawes explained that the center is the final piece of a comprehensive, three-tiered model that “gives community members in crisis someone to call (the Montgomery County Crisis Now Hotline), someone to come to them (Mobile Crisis Response Teams), and somewhere to go (the new crisis center).”
- Columbus, Indiana. As Mark Webber reported for The Republic, “a new crisis intervention center in Columbus opened to serve those experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis 24 hours a day, seven days a week [as] an alternative to the emergency room or jail[.]”. Patients will receive “triage and crisis intervention such as inpatient detoxification and rehabilitation; mental health and substance use disorder treatment services; peer support or recovery coaching; connections to shelters, food and clothing” and Narcan access. In the coming months, the center will launch its own mobile crisis responder team that can be deployed “at all times seven days a week to assist first responders when an individual cannot make it to a safe location to get care.”
- “New York must open crisis stabilization centers: People in mental health throes need immediate help”—A local pastor in Queens, New York penned a powerful op-ed urging lawmakers to open crisis stabilization centers across the state following the killing of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who struggled with mental illness, on the subway earlier this month. From the op-ed:
“Miami Dade County and San Antonio have been pioneering full-spectrum crisis stabilization and care for two decades. Since 2017, Dutchess County New York has been home to a Crisis Stabilization Center which now includes forensic mobile crisis response teams and peer-led respite centers. They serve more than 5,000 people a year from eight counties and have diverted 25,000 days of psychiatric hospitalization. Surely we can do the same here… Create and staff the crisis stabilization centers that will help make New York a safer and more humane city again. Jordan Neely is dead. Let him be the last.”