It’s well known that the need is critical. With the current shortage of inpatient beds, among other behavioral health services, an untold number of Tacoma and Pierce County residents simply don’t have access to the mental health care they need and deserve.
We’ve known it for years and been reminded of it repeatedly — and all too often tragically.
That’s why the Tacoma City Council’s decision Dec. 17 to potentially scuttle a needed 105-bed psychiatric hospital at South 19th and Proctor was so unexpected and, frankly, bewildering.
To the casual observer, the unanimous decision likely came out of nowhere.
To those intimately and painfully familiar with the holes and shortcomings in Pierce County’s mental health system it came as a gut punch.
There’s no other way to say it.
As The News Tribune’s Debbie Cockrell reported, the decision, as they so often do in local government, ostensibly hinged on a question of land use Tuesday night.
Signature Healthcare Services, a California-based company, wants to build its hospital just blocks from where Wellfound Behavioral Health Hospital now stands.
To do it, Signature needs the City Council to rezone the area — which, like Wellfound, is in District 3.
That didn’t happen.
The council, flatly and surprisingly, said no, rebuffing the city hearing examiner in the process.
The rejection, which was led by District 3 City Council member Keith Blocker, was confounding for a variety of reasons.
For starters, there was the lockstep support it received at the 11th hour — including, vocally, from Mayor Victoria Woodards.
Red flag
The reasoning the two elected leaders provided served as the biggest red flag.
Blocker said Tuesday night that while he recognizes the need for more psychiatric beds in Tacoma and Pierce County, he has “huge concerns about placing and consolidating too many behavioral health centers in one location.”
Woodards followed, adding that while she, too, understands the need, that “doesn’t mean they all belong in District 3 nor do they all belong in the city of Tacoma.”
However you parse it, the message and implications seem pretty clear:
A planned 105-bed psychiatric hospital in Tacoma isn’t going forward because every single member of the City Council endorsed the misguided idea that the facility was a burden — seemingly ignoring that the facility has the potential to save lives in process.
It was discussed as a matter of equity, for District 3 and the rest of the city.
In truth, it came off quintessentially NIMBY, intentional or not..
There’s no other way to say it.
Certainly there are elements of truth to Blocker’s argument.
Days after Tuesday night’s vote, Blocker stood firm, telling The News Tribune he believes District 3 already has one psychiatric hospital and doesn’t need another.
