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San Luis Obispo County facility closes following lawsuit, lack of clients

February 28, 2025

Ribbon cutting at San Luis Obispo County Crisis Stabilization Unit in 2018

By KAREN VELIE

San Luis Obispo County closed one of its mental health facilities less than three weeks after a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against the county and the contracted operator of the facility.

The county, however, points to the $1.5 million a month it spent on the crisis stabilization unit as the reason for the Oct. 10, 2024 closure. At that time, the unit was serving an average of 1.5 clients a day.

Following the deaths of several mentally ill patients, including Andrew Holland, in 2018 the county opened the crisis stabilization unit. The unit was supposed to “allow medical professionals to stabilize up to four community members experiencing serious mental health issue at a time.”

SLO County outsourced management of the unit to Sierra Mental Wellness Group.

Shortly after the facility first opened in 2018, employees began complaining of mismanagement and failures to follow the law. For example, the unit was a 24-hour facility, and was only permitted to keep patients for up to 72 hours under limited circumstances, a requirement staff told CalCoastNews was frequently ignored.

A Paso Robles teen died at a San Luis Obispo County in May, 2024, though it would be eight to 10 hours before anyone noticed. After complaining for months about mismanagement at the facility, the teen’s death prompted four employees to hand in their notices.

The mother of the deceased teen filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court on Sept. 23, 2024 seeking monetary damages and closure of the facility. Seventeen days later, SLO County closed the facility.

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I remember County Supervisor Shirley Bianchi being the voice of reason back when the fate of General Hospital was being decided. She said the county needed to maintain a public hospital for the people as a viable alternative to for profit health care. Shirley was afraid that once public healthcare was dismantled the people would be at the mercy of for profit healthcare, whose bottom line wasn’t providing good care, but making a profit. In hindsight I would say she was absolutely right.


26

A direct result of incompetence and lack of accountability in the work place, look at the fool cutting the ribbon.


27

Where do I begin. First, the staff on duty at the CSU during the intake of Elina until she was so tragically found lifeless, should all have criminal charges filed against them for abuse, neglect and manslaughter of a vulnerable adult, as should the supervisors. Those that were licensed, RNs’, LVNs’ Psychiatric Technicians, CNAs’ should lose their State licenses permanently. It was a not so well kept secret in the SLO County mental health community that the CSU was very poorly run with inexperienced and incompetent staff given supervisory positions and that many of the staff were rejects from Atascadero State Hospital (ASH) who were offered up to $15.00 an hour more than Psych Techs from ASH. These staff openly bragged about watching movies all night and only having to monitor clients once every 2 hours via a computer monitor. Clients who were having symptoms of crisis, crying, fear, talking loudly and were not under a PC 5150 (72 hour hold) but were simply there for crisis stabilization because they felt unsafe to be alone would be told they could go out to the parking lot to walk and talk with a staff to calm down. Once in the parking lot they would be handed their belongings and told they are being discharged as they were “too much to handle.” Staff would then lock the doors and not let them back in. Many of these vulnerable 20 somethings were Cal Poly students who were having extreme anxiety, thoughts of hurting themselves or were simply in emotional distress and had checked themselves in after being referred by the SLO Hotline. Any licensed personnel that had ethics and morals filed complaints that were ignored and they would eventually quit. Please be very clear that the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) is a completely different entity than the Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF) Unit that was run by SLO County for years. They are both located on Johnson St. Crestwood Behavioral Health currently contracts with SLO County to run the PHF. A family member had a recent stay there and found they were professional, safety conscience and the overall experience was very helpful. This is a 16 bed facility. I hope Elinas’ mother gets justice for her daughter and herself for their horrific and needless loss.


23

We can build all of these facilities we want but if people won’t seek help voluntarily it won’t do any good… we have to have forced incarceration’s into facilities like this… if we are our bothers keeper we should want to help people even if at first its against their will… the substance abuse centers like in Morro Bay are doing good things because people addicted to drugs do realize at some point they need help but mentally ill people do not… not on their own anyway….


16

They closed General Hospital to cut costs years back. Folding in all the cost of these lawsuits over the years makes you wonder if that was the correct choice.


30

Download and read the SLO Grand Jury report from 2022 about County Mental Health Services. The BOS and administrators knew then that the CSU was waste of money and a potential danger to those it was supposed to be helping. They were paying a nurse a fulltime salary to be there every day. She was there half the time because the other half of her time was spent doing the same job for Nevada City. Staff at the CSU were periodically monitored via CCTV by the supervisor at the nearby Psych Facility; until CSU staff were observed playing around on their phones, whereupon they pulled a chair over, climbed on it, and taped paper over the camera lens. And that’s just the tip of the malfeasance iceberg. Read the report and then weep for the most vulnerable among us; those the county is supposed to be caring for to the tune of $70+ million of our tax dollars per year.


35

Spending $1.5 million per month to serve an avg of 1.5 people per day… that pretty much sums up any government operation…

And ya wonder why we the people want transparency for where our tax dollars are going?

It’s as if our representatives actually try to outdo each other to screw things up and waste our money… there just aren’t words anymore.


62

SLO shouldn’t have gotten involved with the mental ill . Let the parent handle their own children .Or just let the mental ill run the streets . It’s cheaper .


-45

They eventually end up at ASH anyway. Hopefully, not after harming your loved one.


-1

…..Once upon a time , County Mental Health ran the Crisis unit up on Johnson adjacent to the old General Hospital. They routinely had 4 plus patients dealing with 72 hour hold problems.

It functioned for years without big problems and at about a tenth of the monthly cost cited here.

What gives? Maybe the Grand Jury should take a peak under the hood, so to speak.


31