Mental Health department expands outreach and street psychiatry, stresses capacity limits in jail and inpatient care
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Summary
Mental health officials described expanded mobile outreach (street psychiatry), high volumes in jail mental-health contacts and crisis responses, grant-funded criminal-justice collaborations and caution about potential federal funding cuts that could affect services.
Department of Mental Health staff presented statistics and program expansions to the finance committee, highlighting crisis-diversion successes and new outreach programs serving people with severe behavioral-health needs.
A department representative said last year the adult outpatient clinic served 641 unique individuals and that another 837 people were diverted to community services. At Albany Correctional Facility the department reported 940 patients in clinic-based services and more than 11,000 day-patient contacts; the crisis team reported 1,877 crisis contacts in 2024 and said 82% of those contacts were diverted from hospitalization.
Officials described existing and expanded programs that seek to reach people where they are, including a street psychiatry program (mobile outreach treatment and overdose response) and a motor (mobile outreach treatment and overdose response) footprint expansion. The presenter said these initiatives allow medication, on-the-spot short-term treatment and linkage to longer-term services and will increase the county’s ability to reduce opioid overdoses.
The department also discussed partnerships with probation and justice-system grants to support behavioral-health caseloads, including a Bureau of Justice Assistance grant to coordinate mental health and probation services. Officials said the county oversees about $18 million in state-aid contracts and works with roughly 75 community providers.
Legislators asked about inpatient-hospitalization contractual spending and the county’s exposure for competency evaluations and hospitalizations; the department said a 2021 state change requiring counties to cover 50% of certain competency hospitalizations greatly increased county costs and that local bed shortages increase jail census and downstream hospital and evaluation costs. The department reported no confirmed cuts from state or federal sources at the time of the hearing but said it is monitoring the federal climate closely.
