Cultivating Peace of Mind for a Peaceful Community

What is a healthy and safe community without peace of mind? And how does one find it when you’re unhoused and underserved?

It’s Monday morning in Norristown. A young woman sits at the bus stop with her bags filled with her belongings, searching anxiously for a bathroom to no avail. Across the street, the steps of the Montgomery County Courthouse reveal a press conference coming underway.

“Montgomery County is investing $18 million into a new 24-hour Emergency Behavioral Health Crisis Walk-In Center,” shares Jamila H. Winder, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. 

A representative from Connections, the out-of-state contracted provider for the new facility, explains, “Currently, the scarcity of resources in the county is forcing individuals to seek care in emergency rooms or end up in jail out of necessity.” According to the American Psychological Association, 54% of incarcerated individuals report mental health concerns. For people experiencing homelessness, that number is even higher at 67%. 

It’s clear that mental health issues are deeply intertwined with social and systemic challenges.

Opening this center represents a meaningful step towards improving access to social services in a region where critical resources – like mental health support and emergency shelter – are diminishing, and the rate of homelessness continues to rise as the county has gone two years without an operational brick-and-mortar homeless shelter. 

While the new crisis center is a step in the right direction, the news of its opening was announced from the steps of the Montgomery County courthouse, the center of a massive renovation project which will ultimately end up costing the county $400 million – and which residents and local advocates are not fully convinced is actually for their benefit. 

Cost Benefit

The population of Norristown, where the courthouse is located, is predominantly Black (32%) and the poverty rate is 18%, more than double the rate of Montgomery County. The $400 million budget is allotted to cover the renovation and restoration of the old courthouse building, the construction of the brand-new Montgomery County Justice Center, and the expansion of the adjacent Hancock Park. The fact that the county is set to invest about 22 times the cost of the new crisis center in a project to expand and refresh structures that some residents have interpreted as symbols of oppression, suggests that the county is operating on priorities that don’t necessarily align with the most pressing needs of its residents.  

The new center stands to ease some of that disparity and interrupt the pipeline from poverty to incarceration. Still, some obstacles threaten its ultimate success; namely, the lack of collaboration with mental health organizations both local and national. Montgomery County commissioners have spoken in favor of partnerships for the success of the project; however, Haniel Tracey from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) MontCo, which is the largest grassroots mental health organization in the nation and most impactful in Montgomery County, wasn’t made aware of the crisis center project before it was announced, suggesting a lack of outreach on the county’s part to crucial community stakeholders. Without this collaboration, there is no community partnership or effective communication across Continuums of Care (CoC), which are responsible for coordinating services in their area.

A potentially promising solution model might have been the Eagleville Hospital project in Eagleville, PA, proposed and then quickly rejected in the spring of 2024 due to smear campaigns and community misperception of the intention of the facility. “Genny’s Place,” as it was dubbed, would have provided services that were similar to what the crisis center offers, but would have been nonprofit-run and would mainly have served as a temporary housing facility for people experiencing homelessness. Because of prevailing discriminatory attitudes toward people experiencing homelessness, community support for the project was impossibly out of reach.

The proposed new crisis center, in contrast, is a county-run “emergency behavioral mental health crisis center” that will have broad authority to both treat and involuntarily commit people (known colloquially as a “302”).

The process and experience of involuntary committal can be incredibly harmful. Haniel from NAMI MontCo expressed concerns, “The police don’t know how to identify what’s going on [during an episode] and de-escalate it. So they will do things to make it further harmful for everybody… and that can also be re-traumatizing.”

While it is commendable that the county is strengthening crisis response systems, the same investment is needed in creating affordable housing policies. This combined approach worked well for Philadelphia, and affordable housing has also been suggested by community members  as a major issue affecting the health and safety of their neighborhoods. Norristown community member Vernon Glen, for instance, told Generocity if he had $400 million he’d use it to create “more housing for poor low-income people.”

Solutions through a different lens

Internationally, similar to other cities in the U.K., London announced in December a charter to end unsheltered homelessness. In addition to investing $39 million to address the homelessness, one hundred businesses, charities, faith, and community groups came together to form a charter that calls on every signatory to play a part, from reporting to police when they see people in need to making more concerted efforts to contribute to solutions.

Perhaps most importantly for cities facing what may feel like an overwhelming challenge, the charter represents a move to establish a shared, city-wide vision for what has to change. Building on a growing awareness of the need for collaboration in tackling homelessness, London offers the mechanisms to involve new players in making solutions possible. 

Additionally, in Topeka, Kansas, the city council embraces the potential for being a one-stop shop of basic services, new mental-health supports, and strategies to better identify students at risk for homelessness, by creating the Homeless Task Force, made up of local government entities, social service agencies, medical and mental health providers, this organization engages in advocacy, information sharing, coordination, and program development devoted to preventing and solving homelessness. By partnering with local stakeholders, Topeka is able to turn worried citizens who file complaints into engaged neighbors who help drive toward city-wide solutions.

These approaches are far from a decisive solution – in the case of both London and Topeka, it is not immediately clear whether activating community members to report individuals experiencing homelessness actually sets into motion a system of comprehensive support for those individuals as opposed to the threat of jail time or competition for limited bedspace, for example – but there are elements in these approaches that hold the glimmer of potential. For example, the task force in Topeka maintains an accurate count of both individuals experiencing homelessness and available shelter beds, and updates it regularly. In this way, community stakeholders are operating with a timely knowledge of the options and resources available to their unhoused neighbors, and simultaneously holding the city accountable to providing these resources as needed, at all times.

As Montgomery County grapples with the intertwined crises of homelessness and mental health, the new 24-hour Emergency Behavioral Health Crisis Walk-In Center marks a critical, though imperfect, step toward addressing these pressing issues. The investment reflects a recognition of the urgent need for mental health support, yet the lack of a holistic approach that includes affordable housing and broad community partnerships leaves much to be desired. While the community waits to find out where the site will be and how many beds it will boast, NAMI is mobilizing impacted populations to build better lives for people experiencing mental illness.   

The path forward requires not just a commitment to immediate crisis response but also a dedication to long-term solutions that respect and uplift every member of the community. As local advocates and residents continue to push for change, there is potential for Montgomery County to emerge as a leader in creating a truly supportive environment for its most vulnerable populations.

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Local Resources: 

Local 

NAMI Crisis Line: 855-634-4673

Montgomery County Peer Talk/Text Line (1-9 PM): Call: 855-715-8255 / Text:  267-225-7785

Montgomery County Teen Talk/Text Line (1-9 PM): Call: 866-825-5856 / Text:  215-703-8411

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233

Central Behavioral Health 1201 Dekalb Street Norristown, PA 19401 | 610-277-4600

Creative Health Services 81 S Keim Street Pottstown, PA 19464 | 610-326-2767