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O.C. gives designation for mental health patients to be taken to Costa Mesa’s College Hospital involuntarily

College Hospital, an acute care facility at 301 Victoria St. in Costa Mesa, has been given county designation as a place where people having a mental health crisis can be taken for involuntary holds.
(Daily Pilot)
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College Hospital in Costa Mesa has been given county designation as a place where public safety officials can take people having a mental health crisis to stay temporarily, with or without their consent.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved the “involuntary” designation for 12 spaces at College Hospital at 301 Victoria St. The facility, established in 1987, is a 122-bed acute care hospital licensed by the California Department of Health Care Services that provides medical and psychiatric services, including 99 beds designated for psychiatric patients, according to its website. The locked facility currently sees people who are admitted voluntarily, according to the county.

Designated “crisis stabilization units” can provide mental health evaluation and treatment to people who are detained involuntarily.

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The dozen spaces at the hospital may round out space available for homeless people that Costa Mesa committed to in connection with a federal lawsuit filed in 2018 on behalf of homeless people cleared from a former encampment along the Santa Ana River.

U.S. District Judge David Carter, who was overseeing the lawsuit — which the city settled last year — called for cities around the county to develop enough emergency and transitional-housing beds to accommodate 60% of the 2,584 unsheltered people documented during a 2017 countywide count.

For Costa Mesa, that meant securing 62 beds for the homeless — enough to serve 60% of the local unsheltered population.

Fifty of those beds are provided in a shelter at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene at 1885 Anaheim Ave. The remaining 12 were to be provided through College Hospital and made available to people suffering a mental health crisis, particularly those who may be a danger to themselves or to others or are disabled due to a mental health disorder.

The hospital’s “involuntary” designation still must be approved by the Department of Health Care Services before it’s official, according to Guadalupe Carrasco, communications coordinator for Supervisor Andrew Do’s office.

“Providing mental health evaluation and treatment to individuals who are involuntarily detained helps them quickly access the appropriate level of care they need,” said Supervisor Michelle Steel, whose Second District includes Costa Mesa. “This facility will be a big help for caring for our homeless population who are all too often suffering from mental health disorders.”

Last March, the Board of Supervisors approved a three-year, $13.3 million contract for the creation of a crisis stabilization unit at College Hospital to serve clients year-round at an average of 18 people per day.

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