After years of planning and plenty of policy talk, Contra Costa County officials and health partners finally picked up the ceremonial shovels yesterday, breaking ground on a new mental health rehabilitation center that leaders say will expand in-county care for adults with serious mental illness. The short ceremony marked the official start of construction on a project advocates say will let more patients stay near family and local supports, rather than being sent out of the county for sub-acute treatment.
Photos from the event surfaced in a Facebook post from Contra Costa Health, which links to the department's announcement and thanks the many partners and funders who helped get the project to the groundbreaking stage. The images show county leaders, clinicians and community partners lined up with hard hats and shovels for the traditional photo op.
Project Scope And Site
A state environmental filing lays out the plan as a retrofit of an existing building into an approximately 45-bed Mental Health Rehabilitation Center that would offer locked, recovery-oriented residential care and 24-hour support. According to a state CEQA filing, the Brookside site in Richmond is identified as the likely location, and the renovation would include seismic upgrades and anti-ligature modifications to make the facility safer for patients.
Funding And How It Fits Into County Plans
County legislative records show the project landed a major state boost. In 2023, the California Department of Health Care Services awarded an $18.6 million grant to help pay for development of an in-county mental health rehabilitation center. County legislative filings document the award and tie it to the county's broader push to add more local treatment options.
State Backing And What It Means
The Brookside project is one piece of a larger buildout of behavioral-health capacity funded through Proposition 1 and the state's Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program. The California Department of Health Care Services says that the program has supported hundreds of construction and renovation projects across the state. DHCS notes that the effort has added residential beds and outpatient treatment slots throughout California.
County leaders have tapped similar state awards for projects such as the Delta Recovery Center to expand East County treatment capacity, and the county has posted details of those awards in its document center. The Brookside site is intended to plug a specific gap in that growing system by giving residents a place to receive sub-acute care without leaving Contra Costa.
Officials, Timeline And Next Steps
In its Facebook post, Contra Costa Health thanked everyone who made this possible and framed the groundbreaking as a key step toward keeping people closer to home, family and services while they receive care. “Our goal is to bring Contra Costa residents back home,” the department has said in earlier county materials about the Brookside plan. The department did not announce an opening date at the event. Contra Costa Health previously described the grant and local need in a 2023 announcement, and county filings show the work will require interior remodels, systems upgrades and multiple rounds of permitting before the center can accept patients.
When it opens, the new center will join a patchwork of county and state investments that are slowly chipping away at a long-running shortage of local residential behavioral health capacity. Officials and advocates say the additional beds and on-site supports are expected to be a critical link in a continuum that includes crisis response, outpatient care and housing supports, and that has often struggled to keep up with demand.
