The Baton Rouge Area Foundation has hired Rob Reardon, who expanded mental health services while working as director of corrections in Lafayette, to organize and establish a crisis intervention center in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Reardon will be executive director of The Bridge Center, a nonprofit BRAF created to care for people living with mental illnesses and substance abuse problems. The center has yet to be established, but as envisioned by BRAF it would include a sobering unit, a medical detox program, behavioral health respite beds, and a care management team to coordinate care after individuals leave the center.
Project leaders have found an existing detoxification center with extra space on South Foster Drive to locate the crisis intervention center. BRAF has agreed to cover renovation costs, while Mayor Kip Holden is proposing 1.5 mill property tax that would generate about $5.8 million annually to pay for operations. The Metro Council will soon vote on whether or not to place the property tax proposal on the December ballot.
John Spain, BRAF’s executive vice president, says Reardon was hired as executive director because of what he accomplished in Lafayette, which includes implementing mental services, expanding re-entry services to reduce recidivism and offering services to at-risk youth.
“He created a system that saved money and treated people with mental illness in a humane way, while making the parish safer,” Spain says in a statement.
In February, BRAF unveiled a mental health strategy that aims to reduce the mentally-ill population in the parish prison and save the city-parish money.
The strategy called for a multipronged approach to addressing inadequate mental services in the city-parish where law enforcement officers historically have either taken the mentally ill to jail or to emergency rooms. BRAF’s crisis intervention center is modeled after a similar program at the San Antonio Restoration Center in Texas.
“I strongly believe that incarceration, although sometimes necessary, is usually not the best solution to those dealing with mental illness and substance abuse issues,” Reardon, says in a statement.
A comprehensive jail diversion program designed to treat those with mental illness and substance abuse problems rather than incarcerating them would save city-parish taxpayers an estimated $3 million in its first year and nearly $55 million over 10 years, according to an economic analysis commissioned by the BRAF and conducted by The Perryman Group.
