Washoe County Commissioners have voted to buy the shuttered West Hills Behavioral Health Hospital on East Ninth Street.
On Wednesday, County Manager Eric Brown sat down with 2 News and said that the building's exact future isn't certain, but the county does plan to bring back the mental health services the facility once offered.
“I know that there are a lot of things being said about what it is and what it’s going to be, take it from me, we don’t know yet. We do know it’ll be a mental health facility," Brown said.
Brown wants to have the building ready for patients as soon as summer 2024, but one thing stands in the way: renovations.
The county spent just under $5 million to purchase the property, and it will need to put approximately $10 million into building repairs to bring it up to code.
When the hospital closed its doors in 2021, CEO Burton Carriker cited financial and staffing issues, along with "the cost to renovate aging infrastructure."
It was a 46,000 square foot, 95-bed facility that treated adults and seniors. But under county ownership, the target clientele age may shift.
“There just isn’t enough capacity to serve people with mental health problems, and in particular, juveniles," Brown said.
He added that the county wants to emphasize early intervention to diagnose mental health issues in young people, before those challenges become life-long.
"In many cases that’s why we have as many people as we do in our detention center, in the CARES Campus, and at Our Place," he said.
According to Washoe County staff reports on the building purchase, the gap in mental health support has grown in severity over the last 24 months since West Hills closed, and Brown says it's visible in the jail and homeless shelters.
“On any given night, you have people who are there who probably shouldn’t be there," Brown said. "They should probably be in a facility where they’re getting mental health treatment."
He later added, “This is an amazing opportunity for this community to come together and figure out how do we better address the needs of the individuals who have mental health issues. ... The building is just the start."
This story was updated following an interview with County Manager Eric Brown. Original story below:
The Washoe County Board of County Commissioners has approved the purchase of the former West Hills Hospital building on East 9th Street in Reno.
The plan is to use the building as an in-patient mental health facility.
In December of 2022 the board allocated $4.8 million in COVID recovery funds to purchase the building and were waiting for approval of the purchase.
In a post on the Washoe County website, the County notes that a shortage of mental health providers, coupled with the inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rate in Nevada, has created a significant gap in accessible mental health services, which has increased in severity over the past 24 months.
Additionally, the property is large enough to house the Washoe County Health District Tuberculosis and Community Health Clinic that is currently located at 10 Kirman Avenue.
