It’s a good thing county mental health czar Toni Navarro has a survivor’s sense of humor, given the transformational struggles confronting her department this coming year. Borrowing a line from her yoga instructor, Navarro tried to put a positive spin on the challenges when talking before county supervisors at the dress rehearsal for this year’s budget deliberations: “Okay, it’s going to suck a little. Then it’s going to be fun.” That was a lighter quote than the one she offered earlier in the meeting: “It’s in embracing the chaos that we find the courage to transform,” she said.
But it was the agonizingly desperate testimony the supervisors heard after Navarro spoke from about 20 relatives of seriously mentally ill individuals who’ve found themselves locked up at various times in county jail — often held in isolation — some for as long as two-and-a-half years, that dominated the meeting.
Although the details would differ, the punchline was always the same: The County of Santa Barbara desperately needs more acute care beds for those suffering from serious mental health problems. It does not need more jail cells. In the strategic crosshairs of all this testimony are the hundreds of millions of dollars County Sheriff Bill Brown intends to spend to bring the main jail up to standard. Jail, the supervisors were told, is where mentally ill people go to get worse, not better. If you wouldn’t put someone with cancer or heart disease behind bars, then you shouldn’t do so to people with serious mental health problems.