Ten months after the city and county of Sacramento approved a homeless services partnership agreement, on Thursday officials said they fulfilled one of its commitments: opening a new behavioral health center in the central city.
Located on 1400 X Street, the center will open to the public starting Friday and offer both walk-in and specialty outpatient services, such as therapy and case management.
“It is really one of the cornerstones of our partnership agreement that the city and county forged at the end of 2022,” Sacramento County Supervisor Rich Desmond said at the ribbon cutting. “To help address mental illness in the community, specifically mental illness in the downtown core for people experiencing homelessness. And that's why this location is so important.”
The center is about one mile away from the X Street Navigation Center, which has 100 shelter beds. The city requested the county fund and open a mental health center in the downtown core during negotiations last year, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. The center isn’t exclusive to people experiencing homelessness, however.
Anyone can visit the center, which has showers, laundry machines, computers, couches and a TV. Outside, the center offers kennels for pets as well as tables and chairs. The walk-in wellness area is designed to give people an opportunity to build rapport, said Ryan Quist, the county’s behavioral health services director.
“Once they get more comfortable and know the individuals that were working here and have relationships with the staff, then they're going to feel more comfortable opening up and going through an entire assessment process,” Quist said.
Trisha Spitt, Manager at the Hope Cooperative CORE X Street Center, shows washing machines in the new mental health center in Sacramento on Oct. 5, 2023.Kristin Lam/CapRadio
Staff on site can assess people to determine if they qualify for outpatient mental health services, Quist said. County staff can also refer and direct people to the outpatient program at the X Street center. The center follows the same model as the county’s nine other sites for its CORE program, which stands for Community Outreach Recovery Empowerment.
There are three other sites within City of Sacramento limits, including locations in North and South Sacramento. But the city requested the county fund a fourth site to better reach unhoused people in the downtown area.
The nonprofit Hope Cooperative runs the new center. CEO Erin Johansen said the mental health center complements the work Hope Cooperative’s outreach program does in the area.
“We already have relationships with the people on the streets in this area, so we can use that sort of warm hand-off introduction to really reach people sooner and engage more deeply,” Johansen said.
People who qualify and enroll in the center’s outpatient clinic can get therapy, psychiatry services and a case manager who can meet them in the field or in the office, Johansen said. The clinic can also connect people to housing resources or refer them to substance use disorder services, which aren’t currently offered on site, she added.
The Hope Cooperative CORE Program Center on X Street in Sacramento on Oct. 5, 2023.Kristin Lam/CapRadio
More information on the CORE Program centers can be found on the county’s website.
Follow us for more stories like this
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today
