San Mateo may get a new sobering station

The county has been without a sobering station since May, when one of the county’s top behavioral health providers StarVista shut down. Between May 21 — when the center first closed — and the beginning of September, DUI bookings in Maguire Correctional Facility have more than doubled since the same time period a year before, going from 258 to 580.

The new sobering station would have higher capacity than the former location and would be housed at 101 N. El Camino Real, at the edge of the Baywood neighborhood in a two-story building, comprising 16 sobering center beds, 17 detox and 36 beds for residential treatment services with medical support.

“You’re not just dropping them off in Burlingame to try to get them sober quickly, and they’re there for six or eight hours, and you try to refer them to another provider [unsuccessfully],” Jaime Campos, CEO of Horizon Treatment Services, said. “Instead you bring someone to an integrated, co-located facility that has the capacity to do it all, and that’s the future that we’re after.”

However, it could take until June before Horizon and the county are notified of whether they received the funding and another couple years before the new development is constructed. The county is starting the process of potentially reopening the former site in the interim. 

While Horizon’s plan is still in the early stages, San Mateo Councilmember Lisa Diaz Nash said she wants to ensure neighbors have opportunities to weigh in as soon as possible.

“We want to make sure that if this comes, that we plan well for it and that Horizon communicates well with the neighbors and neighborhood associations,” Nash said. “That just needs to get done way in advance.”

Because individuals brought to the sobering station are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, there may be instances when police are called again if their behavior escalates. In those cases, Nash said it’s important there is a clear plan to understand which agencies are responsible for escalation calls and to have full buy-in from San Mateo law enforcement.

“We’re trying to think ahead and have all the questions answered, so that our police department can plan their resource allocation and stick to a plan, so that’s our concern,” Nash said. “At the facility on Palm Avenue, there have been issues in the past, and that’s why the police department wants to be clear about what happens because they’ve had to go there a number of times.”

The Horizon-operated Palm Avenue center in San Mateo provides detox services, and police have responded to the facility 33 times so far this year, according to the department. 

“This sounds like it could be a much bigger project. I don’t know a lot of the specifics, but I like the idea of bringing the First Chance model back,” Police Chief Ed Barberini said. “It gave us a really productive alternative to taking people to jail.”

At Horizon’s Mission Street Recovery Station in Santa Clara, about 1.5% of cases escalate and involve a call with police after drop-off, Campos said, and each location has a plan in place to determine which law enforcement agency will handle those types of calls. In Santa Cruz, for instance, the sobering station is on jail property, making it the responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office to handle those escalations.

“The sheriff is OK with coming over and de-escalating that, so that the drunk tank in the jail is not overflowing,” Campos said. “In other regions, they want the law enforcement that dropped off the client to go back and get them if they dropped them off. Our commitment to law enforcement in San Mateo is to talk about it and come up with the right protocols.”

Barberini said he heard that sometimes law enforcement agencies had to respond to such calls in Burlingame but said he isn’t too worried about the issue. 

“Having a sobering station is worth that,” he said. 

The state funding comes from Proposition 1, which makes changes to the long-standing Mental Health Services Act and raises billions of dollars to fund treatment facilities and supportive housing infrastructure. To date, the county has not received any Prop. 1 money, however, the most recent round will prioritize counties that haven’t received such funds, Campos said.

He added that a town hall meeting will be held in San Mateo in February to receive more feedback from the community.

“Some of the neighbors may have concerns, like how we will manage client flow, and we will invite some input about a good neighborhood policy and making sure we have all the right mechanisms in place,” Campos said. “We want to be collaborative.”