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The judge spearheading a project to end the homelessness-to-jail cycle confirmed the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery will open this year.
The pioneer facility is to be a one-stop shop for primary care and psychiatric services for unhoused people with acute mental illnesses who are in the criminal justice system or at risk of entering it.
Miami-Dade County spends $232 million annually to warehouse 2,400 people with mental illnesses, making the county jail the largest psychiatric institution in Florida. The new center is to act as a diversion and treatment program to address critical needs that have gone unmet, reduce the recidivism rate and save millions of tax dollars.
Steve Leifman, the 11th circuit court judge behind the idea, told Miami Today that The Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery will open this year. The center is working with the City of Miami to expedite the permitting process.
“We’re hopeful that we will have a temporary certificate of occupancy within the next three to six weeks,” he said.
Construction of the center at 2200 NW Seventh Ave. is almost complete. The site is to feature primary health, dental, vision, and podiatry clinics. It is also to offer residential treatment, transitional housing and outpatient behavioral health care.
The new facility is to provide 208 beds, an indoor basketball gym, a library, vocational rehabilitation, educational services and a culinary jobs training program. The center is partnering with Workforce Florida and Miami Dade College to identify additional employment opportunities so individuals can become self-sufficient.
A courtroom will be located within the building, as well as space for legal and social service agencies. The center has a capital budget of $51.1 million – $43.1 million from the county’s Building Better Communities General Obligation Bonds and $8 million from Jackson Health.
Columbia University and the University of Miami will lead research at the center in hopes of creating a blueprint that other communities can follow to help eliminate the complex problems that result from inadequately caring for the mentally ill and homeless population.
Judge Leifman envisioned the project over 20 years ago. In 2000, he heard a case involving a Harvard-educated psychiatrist who worked at Jackson Memorial Hospital and had a late onset of schizophrenia. The psychiatrist became homeless and started to cycle through the criminal justice system for minor offenses.
“Unfortunately, in Florida, if you are adjudicated incompetent on a misdemeanor, the court loses jurisdiction and authority to have you hospitalized, treated or restored to competency. So, my only option was to release him back to the street, which was horribly frustrating,” the judge explained.
“As a result of his case, we had a summit that year and we mapped out the intersection between the criminal justice system and the community mental health system,” Judge Leifman said.
After stakeholders and experts saw how dysfunctional the system was, they formed the 11th Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project to make massive structural change through a two-part approach consisting of a pre-arrest and post-arrest diversion program.
“Since the pre-arrest diversion program started, we have trained over 8,000 police officers in all 36 departments in Miami-Dade County and the results have been stunning,” said Mr. Leifman.
The pre-arrest program reduced annual arrests in the county by more than 50%, from 118,000 to 53,000. Consequentially, the inmate population decreased and the county closed one of three main jails, saving $12 million a year.
Two post-arrest diversion programs were also initiated so that those arrested who meet the criteria will be screened, quickly released from jail and be provided with a support system and services to help with recovery.
“The misdemeanor recidivism rate dropped from 75% to about 20%, and it worked so well the state attorney worked with us to expand it to non-violent felony cases,” Judge Leifman said.
Participants who complete the felony program – about 70% – have a recidivism rate of only 6%.
Judge Leifman said the county has done a good job with the homeless population but about 1,100 remain on the street, most of whom have acute mental illnesses that haven’t been appropriately addressed.
“We believe that this facility will help us eliminate our homeless situation as close as we will ever be able to do,” Judge Leifman said. “It will substantially reduce the jail population of people with mental illnesses so we can save the county and taxpayers millions of dollars.”