'Fallen through the cracks': Program plans to double ability to help mentally ill offenders

Jacksonville's Mental Health Offender Program started out a little less than a year ago as a pilot program, designed in the hopes of reducing the number of people with mental illnesses cycling in and out of the Duval County jail on misdemeanor charges, most of which stem from homelessness.

The pilot program is working, according to the Sulzbacher Center, which is heading the project, and there are now plans to expand in 2022 after an influx of cash from the city and state.

There have been four graduates from the program, meaning they are on necessary medication, have accessed state and federal benefits and found housing. There are 20 people still currently working through, and Sulzbacher plans to accept more people into the program to include a total of 40 participants.

The expansion comes after the City Council appropriated $600,000 for the program, on top of $700,000 from the state, for a total of $1.3 million – enough to run the program through 2022.

But even the expansion to 40 participants is a small percentage of the over 200 people that the Sheriff's Office and the State Attorney's Office has identified as eligible for the program.

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"These are the individuals that have fallen through the cracks of multiple systems. They just keep cycling between the crisis unit, the jail, the E.R., and back again," said Dr. Colleen Bell, medical director at Sulzbacher. "We're really trying to be that person that follows them throughout and tries to help them get that stability."

For example, one of the four graduates of the program was arrested 97 times since 2017 and 25 times in 2020 alone, according to data provided to the city at the end of the pilot phase. This person has now successfully transitioned into an assisted living facility.

The process to screen and potentially ask someone to join MHOP starts when someone is brought into the county jail who is eligible for the program. Sulzbacher is then notified and either Bell or another employee goes to the jail and speaks to the person to make sure they are able to give consent to join.

At their first appearance in court, the candidate for the program is asked if they'd like to join the program and "hopefully the judge agrees," Bell said.

Typically by the next day, the participant is out of the jail and into temporary housing, typically a motel, while they work with Sulzbacher's doctors, psychiatrists and employees to find more permanent housing.

Finding housing, Bell says, has become one of the most difficult aspects of the new program. The motel stays for the participants can last months until Sulzbacher finds an apartment or an assisted living facility.

"We were fortunate to get housing vouchers, section eight vouchers. But the problem is that nowhere takes them," Bell said. "There's not a lot of affordable housing units in our city."

Another roadblock is the deep distrust between misdemeanor offenders with mental health issues and advocates or law enforcement. Bell says even when she explains the program to potential participants, that distrust keeps people from entering.

"I'd say about half of them turn me down. Good or bad, they get rearrested again. So we keep going, and we keep trying," Bell said. "Eventually they're able to say maybe I can give this a chance. But having that trust factor I think is huge and that takes time to build."

Jail is 'not the place' to treat mental illness

The program came out of the Social Justice and Community Investment Special Committee, and was championed by the late council President Tommy Hazouri and council member Ron Salem.

The cost of arresting people for nonviolent, misdemeanor crimes costs a significant amount of money: about $900 per person.

"We also determined many of those were arrested on a misdemeanor and are spending time in jail, and we all agreed that was not the place to treat someone who was arrested for something minor," Salem said. "The sheriff is the one that's really getting the cost savings because we're keeping people out of the jail that there normally would be in there."

Aside from tracking cost-savings, the program is also tracking racial demographics, how many of the program participants were experiencing homelessness when they were arrested and how many have attempted suicide and been Baker Acted.

Cindy Funkhouser, Sulzbacher president and CEO, said that 93% of participants were experiencing homelessness and all of them have been Baker Acted at least once. 60% of the first 20 participants were Black men and 20% were Black women.

There has also been an 81% decrease in the monthly average number of arrests of the 20 participants since entering the program and 87% decrease in monthly average days in jail. There was also an 80% decrease in the monthly average of cost of booking for the participants, from a monthly average of $7,650 in 2020 to $2,048 in 2021 after the offenders entered MHOP.

For Funkhouser, success for this program would look like eliminating completely people being arrested because of mental illnesses or "homeless lifestyle crimes," like urinating in public.

"You're not trying to break the law. You're just trying to survive and live," Funkhouser told the Times-Union. "If we could completely eliminate this group of folks from rotating through the jail or decrease the number substantially...that would be success. And we know that it's possible because they've been doing this in Miami for about a decade."

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Miami's Criminal Mental Health Project, which Jacksonville's own program was inspired by, has had significant successes. The project has diverted so many nonviolent misdemeanor and less serious felony defendants with serious mental illnesses that Miami-Dade County was able to shut down an entire jail. The county is also building a facility for the most "acutely ill" that the diversion system hasn't been able to help.

Judge Steve Leifman, associate administrative judge with the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida, has been a champion of the project since its inception and has ruled on cases to determine whether the defendant should enter the program.

"It really does everything it says it will do you if do it right," Leifman said. "It saves money, it reduces recidivism rates, it spends taxpayer dollars more effectively and it improves public safety."

Katherine Lewin is the enterprise reporter at the Times-Union covering criminal and social justice issues in Northeast Florida. Email her at [email protected] or follow on Twitter @KatherineMLewin. Contact her for her Signal number to share anonymous tips and documents. Support local journalism!

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Mental Health Offender Program expands with city and state grants