'CRITICALLY INSUFFICIENT' GRAND JURY REPORT BLASTS CARE FACILITIES FOR MENTALLY ILL.

Byline: Rachel Uranga Staff Writer

Housing and residential treatment are ``critically insufficient'' for Ventura County's 11,960 severely and persistent mentally ill, the Ventura County Grand Jury reported Tuesday.

The report links the homelessness rate among the mentally ill to their chronic troubles with law enforcement and noted that jails are the county's largest provider of services and housing for the mentally ill.

In that system, the report said, ``the costs are greater, the treatment setting is inappropriate, and there is a substantial probability the mentally ill adult will be returned to the community and cycle through the criminal justice system again.''

Health officials, meanwhile, attribute at least part of the problem on funding and a lack of direction from state and federal authorities.

The report came the same day workers facing layoffs from the county's behavioral health department pleaded with Ventura County supervisors to keep their jobs.

The grand jury found the Ventura County Sheriff's Department ill- equipped to deal with mentally ill adults, such as those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It also said the department frequently released them at all hours and without notification of a caseworker or family members.

Ventura County, the report charged, falls behind poor or smaller counties in housing the mentally ill. In Santa Barbara County, where the median household income is $46,677, there are 150 beds for mentally ill adults, compared with Ventura County with a median income of $59,666 and only 40 beds for every 100,000.

Despite vows to expand the county's board and care placements, the number of those placements has dropped by 27 in the past three years, the report states.

Currently, the county has 212 beds or residential units for the mentally ill, said Carolyn Briggs, housing director for the county's behavioral health department.

``We agree there isn't enough housing for the mentally ill,'' said Linda Shulman, interim director of the county's behavioral health department.

It's unclear who would pick up the tab for more housing for the mentally ill, she said. The county, she said, doesn't have the funds nor the legal obligation to do it.

She estimated that, in Ventura County, as in the rest of the state, about 35 percent of all homeless people are mentally ill.

``Housing has fallen through the cracks for the mentally ill,'' Shulman said.

Since 1968, there's been a statewide loss of 30,000 hospital beds for the mentally ill, the report said.

State hospitals, like Camarillo State Hospital, which closed in June 1997, used to house the state's mentally ill patients.

Mental health advocates, who have long argued that housing and mental treatment go hand in hand, applauded the grand jury's findings.

``It's a warning,'' said Rick Schroeder, executive director of Many Mansions, a nonprofit housing developer that oversees about 50 units reserved for the mentally ill. Without housing, the mentally ill are likely to live on the streets and create problems, he said.

In Ventura County, 30 percent to 70 percent of the burden for care has fallen on elderly parents. Law enforcement has picked up the rest of the burden, costing the county millions of dollars, the report said.

Staff writer Grace Lee contributed to this report.