POLK COUNTY, Iowa — A new Polk County facility that addresses the challenges of Iowans facing addiction and mental health crises will soon be open to patients around Nov. 18.
Local 5 News was at Wednesday morning's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Polk County Life Services Center.
At the new facility, individuals or their family members can check in at the front where someone will help point that person toward one of the center's three treatment areas: the behavioral health urgent care, the crisis observation center and Saint Vincent de Paul's sobering center.
"[It's] a place to go, and gives a family member to take them somewhere instead of going to jail or the emergency room," Polk County Board of Supervisors Chair Angela Connolly told Local 5 News. "That's the piece that we had been missing."
Connolly headed the project to create the center, and she said it had been in the works for seven years.
Patients can stay up to 23 hours at the facility before social workers provide the resources that a person may need when leaving the building, so the care doesn't end when they leave.
Earlier this year, Iowa Rep. Zach Nunn helped secure $750,000 in federal funding to help pay for the facility. The funding will save taxpayers money because it omits putting someone in prison or jail for their experienced crisis.
"The best goal of here is to keep people in the best place that they can be," said Broadlawns Medical Center CEO Proctor Lureman. "[Having] that instant crisis addressed, put them back on their feet, and have them return to the best life that they can have."
The city of Des Moines will split the operational costs of the facility 50-50 with Polk County.