Bucks County Approves $16M For New Mental Health Diversion Center

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The Bucks County Commissioners on July 5 approved $16 million for the construction of a mental health diversion center in Doylestown Township.

Set to occupy the former site of the Bucks County Women’s Community Corrections Center at 1270 Almshouse Road, the new 23,000-square-foot Diversion, Assessment, Rehabilitation, and Treatment Center will serve people in the criminal justice system who are suffering from mental illness.

"The target population for this center will be individuals who have mental illness, but also have recurring involvement with the criminal justice system," said Donna Duffy-Bell, the administrator of the county's Behavioral Health/Developmental programs. "These will be adult individuals."

While the center has been under development since 2020, Duffy-Bell said the community service gap was first identified in 2016 during a sequential intercept mapping of the county criminal justice system.

"What that looks at is all the different places where an individual can touch the criminal justice system from first contact with law enforcement through incarceration and reentry back into the community," she said.

The purpose of the new center, said Duffy-Bell, will be to divert individuals from incarceration and also from further penetration into the criminal justice system. "And for individuals who have already been incarcerated, the center is to reduce and mitigate recidivism back into incarceration."

The new center will be built from the ground up on the footprint of the former Women's Community Correctional facility, which was demolished earlier this year. It will serve a total capacity of 28 adults.

According to Duffy-Bell, the square footage will be divided into three units - a short-term observation unit, a restoration to competency unit, and a residential treatment facility.

The short-term unit will have an eight-bed capacity with an expected stay of up to two weeks. It will, for example, give the county's magisterial district justices a place to send individuals who come before them with mental health issues and need a safe place to be assessed and directed to treatment rather than incarcerated.

"That is one example of how this center will benefit the continuum of services available to folks in the criminal justice system," said Duffy-Bell. "Also individuals reentering through incarceration, individuals on probation and parole, these are all different intercepts where an individual may benefit from this center."

The restoration to competency unit will provide a place for individuals who are already involved in the criminal justice system but cannot proceed to trial because they are not deemed legally competent to have access to due process. "They are individuals who need to be restored to competency prior to their case progressing in the criminal justice system," said Duffy-Bell.

The residential treatment facility will serve up to 16 individuals at any given time offering a transitional housing program with treatment support. "Individuals may spend nine to 12 months in that unit regaining the skills and the psychiatric stability to have the best chance when they continue in the community of succeeding and being supported in their recovery," said Duffy-Bell.

The five contracts approved during Wednesday’s regular public meeting by a unanimous vote of the Bucks County Commissioners represent the project’s final major hurdles before work can begin later this summer.

"We're excited to have this agenda item today. It's certainly long overdue," said Bob Harvie, the chairman of the Bucks County Commissioners. "In 2016 a study was done that shows there is a gap and this was needed. Obviously, no action was taken. I know that at least one person up here on this dias was banging a drum and has been banging a drum for a few decades now about the need for mental health services," he said, referring to Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia.

"Coming into this office, a main focus was to get this going vertical, getting this building up and serving the residents of this county who suffer from mental illness and who find themselves in trouble with the law at some point," Harvie continued. "Obviously it will help our corrections department because people going through that kind of circumstance really don't belong incarcerated. Jail is not the place for them.

"I'd like to thank Commissioner Marseglia for the work she has been doing for a very long time to try and get this building up and increased services to people throughout the county," said Harvie.

Funds for the project have been allocated from federal and state grants and funding streams, including the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The demolition of the former women’s center was completed early this year. The county plans to break ground in the coming weeks on the one-story center with an A-frame roof design and stone veneer. The center is projected to open in late 2024.