Board Considers Mental Health Center at Campus Site

Fearing the impact of moving Camarillo State Hospital patients with local families to far-off institutions, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed a top health official to explore plans to operate a treatment center on the hospital grounds.

Key to the arrangement, supervisors said, will be finding the money to operate such a facility and negotiating a lease with Cal State University. Last week, a gubernatorial task force recommended that Cal State be given the property after the hospital closes in July.

“If [university officials] are not going to partner with us, then I’m not interested in playing,” said Supervisor Judy Mikels.

The board told Stephen Kaplan, director of the county’s Behavioral Health Division, to study the practicality of running a center to treat mentally ill and retarded patients as well as provide transitional housing for homeless people.

A report is due back to the board by Dec. 17, just weeks before Cal State administrators are expected to submit their own analysis to state lawmakers of how to convert the aging hospital into the system’s 23rd campus--Cal State Channel Islands.

The board made the recommendation at the request of Supervisors John K. Flynn and Frank Schillo, who served on the governor’s 20-member task force.

“It’s really loose as to what the proposal is,” Schillo said. “There’s an awful lot to be considered.”

Last month, Flynn made a late pitch to continue to locally treat Camarillo State patients whose families live within 75 miles of the hospital by leasing some of the property from the university. Currently, the hospital treats nearly 800 people who will be relocated beginning next spring.

Many of those patients have lived at the hospital for decades, and moving them to other state institutions or community group homes could create a serious disruption of their treatments, parents say.

Specifically, Flynn wants to lease the hospital’s children’s center and some of the staff housing to accommodate up to 100 mentally ill and retarded patients with relatives in this area and some homeless people.

*

University officials already have said that they would need to lease sections of the 750-acre campus to other agencies to offset the costs of running the sprawling facility.

Flynn is studying at a language institute in Mexico and did not attend Tuesday’s board meeting.

After the meeting, Kaplan said his analysis would concentrate on providing services to the county’s homeless population and mentally ill patients, but its scope is not yet well-defined. Also, he said, money remains a concern.

“The first thing we’re going to need to do is focus on what the program is,” he said. “Once we look at what the program would be, then we would address the financing.

“Right now, I’m optimistic,” added Kaplan, who cited state and federal grants that could help pay for the center. “I’m hopeful we’ll find a way to make this work.”

Meanwhile, parents of mentally retarded patients already have begun meeting with officials from the Tri-Counties Regional Center in Carpinteria, a placement and referral service for developmentally disabled patients and their families.

*

The regional center, which has jurisdiction over mentally retarded patients, would have to approve placing the three dozen or so developmentally disabled clients who would live at the proposed center.

Gene West of Oxnard, whose son lives at Camarillo State, said a patient advocacy organization, the Green Line Parents Group, will present a supplemental plan to the county to treat developmentally disabled patients at the county-run center.

“We’ll develop separate proposals, but then we’ll fold them together at the end,” West said.

The timeline, however, “is awfully tight,” West said. “But if people want it, I see things happening fast. You’ve just got to get the right power behind you.”

For John Chase, another Green Line member, the right power is the County of Ventura.

With strong support from the governor’s task force and a viable plan by county mental health officials, state lawmakers would be persuaded to embrace the proposed five- to 10-year lease for a treatment center, Chase said.

“There’s nothing in the law that prevents them from funding beds in that facility,” said Chase, whose daughter has lived at the hospital for several years.

“This is an ideal setting,” Chase added. “If they can massage their ideology a little bit, they can preserve an enormously valuable resource they might get for nothing.”

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said she hopes that university officials would incorporate mental health services into the curriculum.

“It’s got to work with what the university wants, but I can see interns being trained out there in real programs,” she said. “A lot of good things can happen out there.”