Project Fills Need for Mentally Ill

Amid the many things Ventura County’s mental health advocates don’t agree on, there is one belief shared by all:

We need a full spectrum of living situations for local residents with mental disorders.

The county took an important step toward solving part of that problem last week when it began construction of Villa Calleguas, an independent living facility for the mentally ill on Lewis Road in Camarillo. With clustered rooms and low-key supervision, Villa Calleguas will offer its residents more independence than they would enjoy at the nearby Las Posadas residential facility but more monitoring than they would receive in a regular apartment.

The success of Villa Calleguas will depend in large measure on how carefully the new residents are selected. Giving this much freedom to people with serious mental problems who need close oversight would be unfair, possibly dangerous, to them and to the community. Yet being too cautious and filling this facility with people who might do quite well in a normal community setting would waste this long-awaited opportunity.

Since the closing of Camarillo State Hospital, there has been no locked facility in Ventura County where the dangerously incapacitated can be securely housed. An audit by the state Department of Mental Health found that “an exceedingly high” number of patients are kept hospitalized in the 43-bed psychiatric ward at Ventura County Medical Center. Auditors suggested patients could be better served by residential treatment facilities.

That is something advocates and families of the mentally ill have been clamoring for more than a decade. Too many mental patients are stashed in inner-city motels and unlicensed room-and-board homes or wandering the streets and sleeping under bridges simply for lack of a place to live with sufficient supervision to ensure they stick to their prescribed medication.

Like Las Posadas and the Hillmont Psychiatric Hospital, Villa Calleguas will help provide the spectrum of options that Ventura County must have.

Each mentally ill person has a wide variety of needs that must be met, but few are more basic or important than a safe place to live and an appropriate level of supervision.