SLO County Receives $21 Million Grant to Build New Comprehensive Mental Health Facility

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – San Luis Obispo County has been awarded more than $21 million from a state grant that it will use to help develop a new comprehensive mental health facility in Paso Robles.

Totaling $21,639,180, the grant is a portion of funding from Proposition 1 that was passed by California voters in 2024 to help address and improve mental health services and treatment.

"We are very excited to be awarded these competitive grant funds," said Star Graber, San Luis Obispo County Behavioral Health Director. "This expansion allows us to respond more promptly to mental health crises and promote health equity across San Luis Obispo County ensuring that North County community members and others can access critical services in our county."

The new facility will be located at 416 South Spring Street in what is currently a vacant building.

"The building, was originally a medical facility," said Nick Drew, San Luis Obispo County Health Agency Director. "It was run by CHC (Community Health Centers of the Central Coast). CHC closed the facility and moved and opened another facility. There's not a whole lot that we need to do in terms of upgrading it, which is wonderful. It really saves us a lot of money. The building's also located on our Paso Robles campus. The benefit of the building is it's right next door to our Public Health Services, our Mental Health and Behavioral Health Services and Social Services, they're all in the same footprint, and so you really couldn't find a better location for it in the North County."

According to a county release, preliminary plans for the project include:

• A new 16-bed Psychiatric Health Facility to increase intensive behavioral health services for
  youth and adults within a secure environment (12 beds for adults and 4 beds for youth).
• The first adult crisis residential treatment program in SLO County which will offer short-term support to community members navigating through a mental health crisis (8 beds for
  adults).
• The first children and youth crisis residential treatment program in the San Luis Obispo
  (and Santa Barbara region) designed to bridge the gap between acute inpatient care and
  reintegration into the community via outpatient care (2-4 beds for youth).

The county pointed out the new facility will serve as a secondary site for those requiring multiple day, in-house psychiatric treatment.

There are currently 16 beds at the county's Psychiatric Health Facility located at the Health
Agency campus in San Luis Obispo, but the need is for much more.

"Right now we don't have enough beds," said Drew. "We just don't. We just do not have enough facilities within our county and within the state to take care of the needs and the more that we can put in, I think the better off everyone's really going to be. The ability to create more of these facilities, we're going to be able to provide more services locally. The benefit of providing a service locally is not only is it beneficial in terms of not having to travel, but we can stay closer within our case management system. 

"You're not coordinating with another county, sending somebody out of the county, bringing them back in. We're able to connect with all our infrastructure internally to make sure that we're providing the right level of services, so it helps with communication and medical service by keeping someone local."

One of the highlights of the new facility will be its youth crisis residential treatment program, which will also allow younger individuals to remain much closer to home while undergoing treatment.

"Having everything here back here in their environment, we can work with the families, we can work with the schools, those kinds of things, and get a ready to transition them back into, the safer, lower level of care," said Graber. "We really want that continuity of care so that they can continue to progress in the journey of recovery, and it's especially important for the families who may or may not be able to go their travel there, sometimes four, or five or six hours away. This will be, benefit not only to them personally, but also to the county budget and our system of care to have people here."

San Luis Obispo County is also working with Santa Barbara County to provide access for younger individuals there who need treatment.

Similar to those in San Luis Obispo County, younger individuals in Santa Barbara County must also travel out of the area to seek treatment.

"If we do happen to have an opening, it can be a joint, regional kind of relationship back and forth," said Graber. "We really plan this grant out to have filled the gaps in all of our region."

The new facility is expected to open sometime in either 2028 or 2029.

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