CT to close mental health facility for young adults
The state plans to close a residential mental health treatment facility in Hartford for 18- to 25-year-olds next month, reducing the number of available beds for young adults in the city by 30 percent, according to the union representing the workers.
“This is taking place at the exact moment that anxiety, depression disorders, suicidality are skyrocketing,” Rob Baril, president of SEIU 1199, said Monday ahead of a press conference Tuesday to raise concern about the closure.
A spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health Addiction Services said the state did not renew the lease for the building that houses the 10-bed Hilltop Residential Program in Hartford’s North End, and the five residents there will be relocated to similar programs in the city where they will receive the same clinical services.
The department is also “planning to establish 10 new residential placements at a higher level of care so there is no reduction of mental health services for the 18-25-year-old population,” DMHAS spokesperson Arthur Mongillo said in a statement Monday.
Mongillo did not say why Hilltop’s lease is not being renewed. Baril said the commissioner of DMHAS told union representatives in a meeting last week that the department had not looked for an alternate site in Hartford for the program — an indication to him that the state is moving toward privatization.
“The reality is the state of Connecticut loses no opportunity to move to privatize existing state services and it critically impacts low-income communities, which, as we know, are disproportionately Black and brown,” Baril said. “I just question whether this program were located in, say, Greenwich, whether the state would have looked very, very hard to find an alternate place to provide care for these kids.”
The closure will not result in lost jobs. The 12 unionized workers at Hilltop will fill open positions at other state-run facilities, Mongillo said.
“The landlord did not renew the lease,” Mongillo said Tuesday morning. “There are no other facilities from which DMHAS is planning on transferring young adults if the lease for the building being utilized expires. DMHAS is not engaged in any union busting activities and is not looking towards privatization.”
While many of the staff members “are easily relocated,” the closure will be “detrimental” to the mental wellbeing of the young adult clients, said Avis Ward, who has worked at Hilltop for over 10 years.
“Most of our clients already have a history of neglect and trauma,” Ward said Monday. “This only forces them to feel abruptly displaced from where they feel most safe at Hilltop.”
The closure comes amid severe staffing shortages in the mental health fields at both public and private providers, and as many face long wait times to access services.
“For us, it’s extremely concerning knowing that a lot of the folks we work with are already struggling to get mental health and addiction services. They’re already waiting in really long lines,” Alicia Strong, president of the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition, said Monday.
DMHAS serves approximately 1,500 individuals annually through the statewide Young Adult Services program, which is for 18- to 25-year-olds. Of them, 260 are served by residential programs.