Mental health care is hard to come by in the Houma area. Here's one plan to change that.
An effort is underway to build a 24-hour mental health crisis center in Houma to fill a need officials say has increased after the COVID pandemic and Hurricane Ida.
Start Corp., a local nonprofit that provides a variety of mental health and medical services, is working with Terrebonne Parish officials to secure about $2 million for the project, which is in its early stages.
The agency's CEO, Casey Guidry, discussed the issue Wednesday night with the Terrebonne Parish Council. He estimates construction costs at $1.2 million and operations, including staff, at $850,000 for the first year. The center would become self-sufficient by the second year.
Guidry and others in the field say the Houma-Thibodaux area has long lacked mental health services sufficient to meet its needs. Nationally, communities average about 420 residents per mental health caregiver. In Region 3, which includes Terrebonne, Lafourche and five surrounding parishes, the figure is 690.
Once money is secured, the center would be built adjacent Start Corp.'s existing building at 235 Civic Center Blvd., Guidry said.
It would act similar to an urgent care medical center but for mental health.
The center would not be set up for long-term, inpatient care but would include six beds where people could stay for observation and be transferred to other facilities if necessary, Guidry said.
"Our idea is not to keep people for a tremendous amount of time," he said. "It may be overnight, it may be for a day or two."
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A lack of inpatient beds has been a long-term problem, Lisa Schilling, executive director of the South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority, said in an interview.
"The number of inpatient psych beds in our Region 3 area is woefully inadequate," Schilling said. "There's only one child adolescent set of beds and that's out of LaPlace."
Since Ida hit last August, the group has provided care and counseling to 80,000 people throughout the region, she said.
Thibodaux Regional Medical Center recently closed its inpatient psychiatriac unit, further reducing the number of beds in the area. In many cases, Schilling said, people who need inpatient services must be sent out of the region to find help.
As it stands, the region has 75-80 inpatient psychiatric beds, including 10-14 for children, she said. The region, which also includes Assumption, St. Charles, St. James, St. John and St. Mary parishes, is home to nearly 400,000 people.
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Local caregivers said they seek to help people through their moment of crisis and then get them the long-term care they need to continue a normal healthy life.
Brandie Levy, a licensed professional counselor with Start Corp., said inpatient care is most often a last resort.
After a disaster like Hurricane Ida, it can take six months to a year for people to move from shock through the grief process, Schilling said. And with this year's hurricane season nearing its peak, feelings of unease are surfacing.
"Back in April of this year, when we had four straight weeks of really bad weather, our calls increased by 85%. They went from 91 to 168, and then our actions taken increased by 95%, from 145 to 285," she said. "Nothing but dealing with individuals and their stress and anxiety about the weather."
The need for mental health care locally is evident, Terrebonne Parish Council members Jessica Domangue and John Navy said, but is hampered by a lack of money.
"This is not just a Terrebonne Parish problem, this is a state of Louisiana problem," Domangue said in an interview. "Every time there's a budget cut, it seems like they cut mental health services."
She said she has discussed funding options with parish finance officials, and options might include federal grants or money from the American Rescue Plan, passed by Congress to help stimulate the economy amid the pandemic.
The council took no action on the matter Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on The Courier: Planned center aims to fill need for mental health care in Houma area
