The mental health center approved in 2004 remains closed while Miami-Dade County leaders delay the plan

In 2004, voters in Miami-Dade County did something extraordinary.

They chose to raise their own taxes to help people with mental illness by building a facility that would transfer them from the county jail, where they often languished without treatment, and instead send them to a place where they could get the help they needed.

Just go through a lot.

That was over 23 years ago.

The center has not yet opened

For years, the project stalled. But two years ago, the promise made to voters looked set to be fulfilled. The county completed the restoration of the building using $50 million of bond money approved by voters in 2004.

The Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery, located at 2200 NW 7th Avenue, will be the first facility that can make a difference in the lives of countless people.

The seven-story, 181,000-square-foot building will include a crisis stabilization unit, residential care, transitional housing, outpatient services and health care services. It will even include the courtroom.

In 2024, after a competitive process, two non-profit groups were selected to operate the facility and provide care and treatment.

Many local groups and agencies have pledged their support, including the Homeless Trust and Camillus House. Funding for the first two years of the project has been secured.

Everything is ready. Everything is arranged.

However, the center is still waiting to be opened.

Judge Steve Leifman, who has worked on mental health issues for more than two decades and has been the driving force behind the center and prison diversion program, often gives tours of the empty building to government officials from around the country who want to replicate his plan to help people with mental illness.

He told visitors he hopes it will open soon.

Not long. It always seems like only a few months. However, the center at the heart of the plan is still waiting to be opened.

The story of the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery reveals how broken Miami-Dade County government is.

And while the mayor and the county commission delayed, and delayed, and delayed some more, the center remained closed and the folks that this center was designed to help continued to suffer.

So, what happened?

Well, last fall, although the county went through a competitive process two years ago and selected two non-profit groups to run the center, a for-profit company out of Nashville – Recovery Solutions – secretly sent a proposal to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, saying they want to take over the building.

They even hired a large lobbying firm, the Southern Group, and lobbyist Oscar Braynon.

After Recovery Solutions and Brayonon worked behind the scenes at the county commission, Leifman’s final approval needed to open the center began to get stuck in one commission committee after another.

The only reason the public learned about this secret proposal from Recovery Solutions was thanks to a report by the Miami Herald.

The mayor never informed Leifman or County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who worked with Leifman to open the center, that there were other proposals being floated.

A proposal that would cost the county more money and help more people.

“It’s kind of scary, and it’s very disappointing,” Leifman told CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede. “And it was very unexpected because all of this happened after we finished everything, and we were ready to open. So, if there were real problems and real problems, they should have been raised years before. This is through a lot of vetting, a lot of analysis, and everything that we do with this building; it is not hypothetical or theoretical. We know that they are not better off and they are going through crime, homelessness, hospitals, again and again and again.

Currently, there is a system where people with mental illness are arrested for homelessness or minor drug charges. They then sit in prison for weeks or months at a time, before being released and then detained again for a short time.

This is a cycle that happens again and again. It’s so bad that Leifman has even been able to identify, by name, 1,000 mentally ill people who keep getting arrested, released, and rearrested.

If you look at just the top five people on that list, in the last five years, those five people alone have been arrested 142 times and spent nearly 4,000 days in jail. And again, it doesn’t involve serious violations. In fact, their crime is being mentally ill.

The center looks to break the cycle

This is not just a crazy system; it’s a cruel one.

These centers can break that cycle by getting them specialized care that prisons can’t provide. It will also save the county millions of dollars in the process.

In an interview with CBS News Miami for Facing South Florida, Cava admitted that last fall he received a proposal from a for-profit company, Recovery Solutions, and he had one of the directors of his department meet with a representative of the company. He also admitted to speaking to the company’s lobbyist, Braynon, about the proposal.

Asked why he kept it a secret and never told Leifman or Regalado, Cava admitted he didn’t think the proposal was complete or worth discussing.

“I think you may not realize this, but we are contacted by hundreds of vendors every day for all kinds of things,” Cava said. “We provided a courtesy meeting with our director. It was not appropriate to proceed at that time. It was not complete, and we have carried out with the non-profit group, which has been chosen to run the facility.

Cava said he remains committed to opening the center. And urged the county commission to move quickly there.

Whether they are moving forward remains to be seen.

It is not clear how many county commissioners were given the secret proposal from Recovery Solutions or if they have been lobbied to delay the opening so that this non-profit company – or maybe another group we don’t know about – can come in and take control of this building.

But while the county commission, under the leadership of Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, continues to drag its feet, the building will remain empty. And because of that, there are people all over our community with mental illness who will continue to suffer.

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