Sonoma County Seeks To Build $40 Million Behavioral Health Housing Unit

Sonoma County is applying for $40 million in state funding for a 72-bed Behavioral Health Housing Unit project that would be located north of the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa.

The 33,400-square-foot housing unit will include 48 cells with windows, half of them double occupancy, in two housing modules. The building will house inmates that require special management housing, including those with acute mental illness.

The current jail was designed to house only 10 percent of the population that needs special management housing, but today 77 percent of the jail population requires such housing.

Other inmates that require special management housing are those in protective custody, those with gang affiliations and those requiring administrative segregation, according to a staff report to the Board of Supervisors. The Board approved the proposed project and the application for state funding Tuesday.

Sonoma County is among five medium size counties that are applying for $160 million in state funding for such housing, and only four medium size counties will receive funding up to a $40 million limit, said Mary Booher in the County Administrator’s Office.

There has been a 400 percent increase in inmates in the Sonoma County Jail who are diagnosed with mental illness, Booher and County Administrator Veronica Ferguson said in the staff report. Those inmates are currently housed in the jail’s mental health module.

The County also plans to use $6.2 million in tobacco securitization funds to support the proposed $48.8 million project. The application for the funding is due Aug. 28, and the final award of funding is on Nov. 12, Booher said.

--Bay City News

--Shutterstock file photo