By Sage Alexander
Times Standard
HUMBOLDT COUNTY, Calif. — Humboldt County has two street outreach programs that work with people with significant behavioral health issues. Those teams are the subject of the latest Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury report released Tuesday. The report looked at the teams and found that proactive outreach by the programs is essential, but a more stable source of funding is needed.
The Mobile Intervention and Service Team (MIST) and the Eureka Crisis Alternative Response Team (CARE) are government programs that send professionals to help people with serious, often untreated mental health and substance use issues, some of whom are experiencing homelessness. These teams serve the poorest people in Humboldt County, where about 20 percent live below the poverty line. The report found that with a health care system in dire straits, especially for the most marginalized, these teams are a critical part of the safety net to help the people they serve. Largely educational, the jury emphasized the importance of the preventative care these teams provide before people reach crisis.
“It’s better for those people because they don’t reach crisis. It’s better for the whole system because once they reach crisis, they affect hospitals, law enforcement, ambulances and fire departments, and it costs a lot more,” said Richard Bergstresser, the civil grand jury foreman, reached by phone Wednesday.
The report concludes that programs need stable sources of funding to succeed.
The report details the back-and-forth over the years in funding these teams. MIST, founded in 2015, was funded by a number of sources such as Measure Z through the Eureka Police Department and a grant from the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services. DHHS cut funding for its share of the program in 2020 and the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors cut all financial support for MIST in 2023. The Eureka Police Department’s Community Safety Engagement Team program contributes to MIST and is funded through the city of Eureka’s general fund. Now, a new federal Medi-Cal reimbursement-based program is being used to fund MIST.
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“The program that allows the Mobile Intervention and Services Team to bill Medi-Cal and receive reimbursements for services provided ends March 31, 2027, with no guarantee of continued funding. Without this revenue source, the MIST program may have to be scaled back or eliminated,” the report said.
The grand jury recommended that the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors provide permanent funding to MIST to cover services that cannot be reimbursed by Medi-Cal.
Like MIST, CARE’s funding formerly came from Measure Z, a county tax that funds public safety, but now comes from the city of Eureka’s general fund, which the report said appears to be stable.
“I think there’s a big difference between the MIST and CARE programs in terms of funding. CARE started with grants, and now the city of Eureka is supporting it through their general budget. They’ve committed to making this a city program,” Bergstresser said.
He said this is important because between the grants there is the understanding that the program will continue.
The report also looked at the effectiveness of the programs. The EPD Community Safety Engagement Team and CARE reported that the programs redirect the vast majority of calls to services instead of relying on involuntary waits at Sempervirens or emergency rooms, which have limited bed space. There is some overlap between the two, but CARE reported that about 83% of people in crisis were redirected to services from January to September 2023.
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The grand jury found it more difficult to obtain similar data for MIST, focusing on a one-year grant with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office in 2022-23. That collaboration does not appear to be very effective, the report said.
“We conclude that there is a dysfunctional work culture, where genuine collaboration between the two departments has not been a priority, resulting in this program not being coherent,” said the report, based on interviews with people with direct knowledge of the situation. The report found that there was a staff shortage during this period and “given the objectives of the program and the substantial state grant of $426,249, the services provided during this period were disappointing.”
The report called on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to fund MIST if no other funding was forthcoming, and for DHHS and the Sheriff’s Office to document requests for services. The report also recommended a study of the cost-benefit relationships of MIST.
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