Residential Program Opens for Downtown’s Homeless Mentally Ill

A residential program to treat mentally ill, homeless people of downtown San Diego opened the doors to its 14-bed facility Friday.

The county-funded New Vistas Center is expected to help alleviate a critical, ever-increasing problem downtown, which is home to an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 mentally ill adults, said Dr. Robert Moore, a senior vice president of the Vista Hill Foundation, a nonprofit group that will operate the center.

New Vistas, a refurbished home at 734 10th Ave., will treat about 400 homeless people a year who suffer from schizophrenia, severe depression and other acute illnesses, program director Luan Bratsky said.

“The program focuses on providing intensive treatment, taking care of the patients’ acute needs by giving them shelter and respite from their normal environment, helping them become stabilized from their acute mental health problem, and preparing them to re-enter the mainstream in a more relaxed and positive state of mind,” said Patrick Stalnaker, a spokesman for San Diego County Mental Health Services.

Treatment Voluntary

The center will receive about $600,000 annually in county monies and will be staffed by 20 mental illness specialists, including a psychiatrist and a psychologist, Moore said. Patients are billed according to their ability to pay, he said.

The clinic is targeted to those street people, aged 18-64, who have spent time in institutions and have fallen out of the traditional health and social service systems, Moore said. Unlike the existing county programs where “you basically have to be placed there involuntarily to receive treatment,” New Vistas will treat patients for up to 30 days on a voluntary basis, Moore said.

The center expects to treat patients with symptoms such as impairment of motor skills, incoherent thinking, bizarre behavior and hallucinations, Moore said.

“What we are seeing is the residue of all treatment centers, patients that have not benefited from other care. We don’t expect to cure their mental illness, but only to ease them through a severe crisis.

“There’s a multitude of agencies for the homeless in downtown . . . . We will be coordinating our efforts with other agencies, helping them do their job better,” Moore said. “This center fills a niche because it’s been lacking from downtown.”

Similar facilities operated by the Vista Hill Foundation are Turning Point Crisis Center in Vista, Logan Heights Crisis Center in Southeast San Diego, Isis Center in South Bay and Halcyon Center in El Cajon.

“This center can do a lot, but it’s only one way to get at the problem,” Moore said. “It’s certainly not considered a panacea to a problem that needs more society-wide solutions.”