Levy up for vote this month would fund mental health services

By Jessica Keller

Queen Anne & Magnolia News editor

Residents should be receiving ballots in the mail for a special election to go before King County voters this month that would provide funding for mental health services around the county.

Proposition No. 1 would fund behavioral health services and capital facilities, including a county-wide crises care centers network; increased residential treatment; mobile crises care; post-discharge stabilization; and workforce supports, according to levy language.

The nine-year property tax levy would assess residents $0.145 per $1,000 of assessed value beginning in 2024. The 2024 levy amount would be the base for calculating annual increases in 2025-32.

Speaking at last week’s Queen Anne Community Council meeting, District 7 Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis said, as the city’s representative on the Regional Policy Committee, he worked with King County Executive Dow Constantine and County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay to come up with a crisis response for behavioral mental health or behavioral health situations triggered by substance addiction to help fill a need in the communities. He said King County has a very small number of places that can accept people in crisis and remove them temporarily from the public.

“This is having an incredibly bad impact on our community safety in the city of Seattle and in King County, and it’s not good for any of the parties involved, the people in crisis or other community members who are in people in crisis to not have this effectively mitigated,” he said.

COUNTY, STATE ROLES

In 2018, King County had 355 residential treatment beds to serve people experiencing some sort of mental health crisis. That has declined to about 244, Lewis said, adding much of the reason stems from how local behavioral mental health providers are compensated by the state.

“The state of Washington over the last several years has not been living up to its obligations on behavioral mental health or behavioral health in general, really, and the result of that has really put a massive burden on counties, King County included, to try to figure out strategies to make up that difference,” Lewis said. “This measure in front of us would get as back to at least parity and hopefully more than where we were in 2018 before the pandemic in terms of residential crisis beds that people can be taken to remove them off the street.”

If passed, the funding would be used to build five regional behavioral health crisis center: one in north King County, one in Seattle, one on the east side – Bellevue/ Factoria/New Castle area, and one in south King County – Federal Way, Auburn, Kent area. The fifth will be focused on youth and their behavioral health challenges they are experiencing, specifically. While that center is likely to be in Seattle, no definitive site will be selected until after the levy passes.

All five centers would have to be set up and operational by 2029, but preferably sooner, Lewis said.

Each center will be able to take people 24 hours a day on a walk-in basis under a “no-wrong door” policy of access, which is different from how many crisis response centers operate right now.

“Our current system is really reliant on emergency rooms and jails be in the King County Jail or municipal city jails,” Lewis said, adding jails

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Vino in the Village coming up Magnolia Chamber of Commerce is hosting a spring Vino in the Village from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 29 starting at Modeles Home Furnishings, 3220 W. McGraw St., in Magnolia Village.

Purchase tickets early because they sell out quickly. This event will feature 16 local wineries that will pour wines and spirits at different businesses in the village. Visit discovermagnolia.org/ and click on the Vino in the Village tickets link.