Bismarck public health officials propose triage center to address root causes of homelessness (2024)

Bismarck-area officials are beginning to look at ways to address behavioral health issues that might be contributing to homelessness in the city, including one option that could take the burden off police and hospitals.

Local public health leaders are proposing a "community triage center" concept to help bridge a gap in behavioral health resources within the community. The City Commission on Tuesday gave Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health Director Renae Moch the green light to form a stakeholder group to explore the option.

The group will likely be made up of representatives from Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health, the Burleigh-Morton Detention Center, the Bismarck Police Department and area hospitals, though the group could be further expanded to include other law enforcement agencies and people in the community who are helping to address homelessness.

"Unfortunately, our community lacks adequate solutions for individuals experiencing homelessness and behavioral health challenges,"Moch recently told the Tribune."As a result, the jail and local hospital emergency rooms have become an improvised crisis response system instead of being a last resort."

Potential benefits

Moch told commissioners on Tuesday that a community triage center would address shortfalls by offering intermediate care for people experiencing a mental health crisis or inebriation. The center would act as a central location to help get patients to the appropriate care they need, leading to more effective and lasting outcomes, she said.Rapid City and Sioux Falls in South Dakota are cities in the region that have triage centers.

The center would include three levels of care: medical detox, social detox and a low-barrier shelter where basic needs, such as a bed to sleep, could be met.

"If someone is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, they may need to be medically taken care of and go through a medical detox," Moch said. "But they could be treated enough where they could go down a level of care and having social detox, just somebody watching over them."

Moch said the center could relieve area hospitals by handling cases of overdose or intoxication, freeing up space for patients suffering other medical emergencies. The facility would serve as a detox center, staffed with personnel specially trained and better equipped to manage behavioral health crises than general hospital staff.

The center could also relieve law enforcement by providing an alternative to emergency rooms for dropping off people in crisis, enabling them to immediately go back on patrol.

Officers spend hours at hospitals following welfare check calls, Deputy Chief JasonStugelmeyer told commissioners. After being cleared from the hospital, patients are often taken to the jail to sober up if a family member isn't available to pick them up.

Stugelmeyer maintains that the current process is manpower-intensive for the department, especially when officers are often seeing the same people on multiple occasions. There is usually one or two officers assigned for each welfare check call.

"The jail thing is OK because they're safe, and we know they're safe, and we're probably not going to get any more calls on them, at least for eight hours," Stugelmeyertold the City Commission. "We need to have some sort of service that prevents us from going back and back."

Triage centers have become a more common alternative for addressing behavioral health crises because they are more cost-effective and efficient than jails or hospitals, according to the National League of Cities.Moch agreed, saying jails can often exacerbate behavioral health issues a person is going through due to the conditions there, causing further trauma.

"If all of us can come together to have a community solution like this, I think it's going to have a great impact. We just need to get the right partners together to do it," she said.