Bonita House Inc. temporarily shuttered its dual diagnosis residential treatment program — the only one in Alameda County — at the end of August. It plans to reopen by late February or early March.
The temporary closure means fewer resources for those in Alameda County simultaneously dealing with mental health diagnoses and substance abuse issues, and no dedicated inpatient dual diagnosis programs at all until it reopens its doors.
The program “had a lot of challenges around sustainability” under its previous format, said Bonita House Executive Director Laura Weissberger.
Ten of the 15 beds were typically reimbursed through Medi-Cal by way of Alameda County, and Bonita House also contracted with Kaiser Permanente as an in-network provider, Weissberger said. They’re dropping the Kaiser contract, and the county has agreed to administer reimbursements for up to 16 beds, which will increase the facility’s capacity by one bed, she said.
Once the program restarts, it will have staff with more advanced medical training than before, so it can take in people with medical conditions that would have made staying there impractical or impossible under the old system, Weissberger said.
“The program was struggling to address the variety of needs that folks had,” Weissberger said.
The stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic have also shifted the mental healthcare landscape.
“The acuity of the mental health conditions of individuals coming in has also increased dramatically,” Weissberger said. “In addition to adding medical staff, we have also increased the skill set of the residential floor staff to really help and manage and address the acute mental health symptoms of the folks that are coming in.”
Weissberger said most people stay on the residential program between 90 and 180 days but can remain for an entire year “depending on their need.” It is a “trauma-informed program that really is a mix of individual and group therapy, as well as life skill building to help individuals both manage their mental health symptoms and substance use in a way that allows them to reintegrate into the community in a healthy and productive way,” she said.
While most of the work is done at the facility, those undergoing treatment are also assigned “practice time,” during which they can go out and about, Weissberger said. They can also earn passes for an entire day or weekend to visit family.
Roughly one-third of the program’s clients “have some sort of current justice involvement,” and more than half “have had previous encounters with the criminal justice system,” Weissberger said.
In the meantime, those seeking the kind of treatment the residential program would provide can call the Alameda County Acute Crisis Care and Evaluation for Systemwide Services (ACCESS) line at 800-491-9099, Weissberger said. There is outpatient care available in the county, she said, and some other inpatient programs do take dual-diagnosis patients but are not strictly dedicated to that area of care as Bonita House’s program is.
Bonita House has continued its other programs, including its wellness centers in Berkeley and Oakland, among others. The organization also manages Berkeley’s Specialized Care Unit, a team that responds to mental health crises and calls for service for substance abuse and other emergencies. Weissberger confirmed that the changes to the dual diagnosis program do not affect Bonita House’s other programs.
