Columbia City Council approves $3 million for crisis center project
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The City of Columbia will spend $3 million to help build a mental health crisis center.
The Columbia City Council voted Monday to fund a new Burrell Inc. nonprofit mental health crisis center.
The Burrell Crisis Center will be built near the organization's Phoenix Clinic at 90 E. Leslie Lane and 107 E. Texas Ave.
"The new center will be about three times as large, offer more private access, be a little bit more personalized than the current temporary center that we've been operating," Burrell North Central Region President Mathew Gass said.
The total cost of the project is $3 million and is funded by the City of Columbia's American Rescue Plan Act funds it received in September 2023 to help address public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the City of Columbia's website, the city received $25.2 million in ARPA funds, and half of the funds were designated for initiatives related to homelessness, community violence, behavioral crisis care mental health services and workforce development. The other half would be used for priority areas that were chosen by community surveys in 2022.
According to Burrell Behavioral Health Center's website, the center provides affordable health services including addiction recovery, residential services and case management and therapy and psychiatric services.
In a statement to ABC 17, Stephanie Browning, the City of Columbia's Director of Health and Human Services said, "The services that will be available at the expanded Behavioral Crisis Center will be a great benefit to the community."
In Burrell Inc.'s proposal in November 2023, Burrell's vision for the crisis center is to expand treatment access, decrease the wait times for clients receiving care and provide more care to clients in the county jail.
"Behavioral Health Crisis Center looks a little bit different across the state, ours is 23-and-a-half hour care across the gamut for individuals that are experiencing a crisis," Gass said. "A really unique thing with this center is the ability to provide an additional 72 hours of care for an individual who may have a little bit more of a complex need on a voluntary basis."
Burrell Behavioral Health is in the early stages of construction plans and is currently finding a general contractor for the project, Gass said.
"We're really excited about the future of this," Gass said. "We knew that when we purchased the other location or we had it built out, that it would be a temporary center to be able to meet the state deadlines for a robust crisis center network, so this [ARPA funds] allowing us to be able to do this will be a great opportunity to really get this right for many, many years to come."
