Citing a dire need for a secure local mental health crisis facility, several Lake County entities have been working for two years on the Lake House, a seven- or eight-bed clinic to assist people suffering from mental health issues.

The project has entered its final stages of fundraising before construction will begin.

The $1.2 million facility will be a safe place for both voluntary and involuntary mental health cases and will address a significant transportation issue for the county.

Lake County Commissioner Gale Decker said the facility is a must for the county.

“The intent is to keep these people in crisis local and near their families,” he said.

Currently, when a person in Polson, Pablo, Ronan or Hot Springs experiences a mental health concern, he or she is taken out of the area to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, Pathways in Kalispell or a facility in Ravalli County.

Most often, an acute psychiatric patient is transported 170 miles to the Montana State Hospital and must be ferried back and forth to Lake County for evaluations and hearings.

The effort to approve and then fund the center has been a collaborative effort among Lake County, the Salish-Kootenai Tribal Health Services, Polson’s St. Joseph Medical Center, Ronan’s St. Luke’s Community Healthcare and the Western Montana Mental Health Center.

Decker said the cost to transport people out of Lake County only to transport them back for any legal reason is substantial.

“We’ll see some cost savings, especially for our sheriff’s department,” he said. “These will be cost savings for the county.”

Lake County is currently spending more than $100,000 per year in jail bed nights, transport, medical evaluations and medications, not to mention what law enforcement and tribal authorities spend.

These costly necessities not only make Lake County one of Montana’s biggest users of the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, but keeps people in crisis from family and loved ones.

Patty Kent, the director of housing and development at the Western Montana Mental Health Center, said the Lake House facility will improve conditions for patients.

“We started creating a 24-hour place in your community to stabilize patients and maintain in your community,” she said. “Right now people are transported in the back of a sheriff’s cruiser, in shackles, all the way to Warm Springs.”

Ground has not yet been broken on the facility, which will be more than 4,000 square feet and will be located directly north of St. Joseph Medical Center’s parking lot on a plot of land the Western Montana Mental Health Center has leased from the hospital.

Two $125,000 grants from the state of Montana helped with the design and the early stages of the project. Other funding from the tribes, the hospitals and the community have helped the fundraising, but the project is still $500,000 short of the $1.2 million needed.

The Lake House will have six unsecured beds for patients who have voluntarily admitted themselves as well as two secured beds for patients who pose a danger to themselves or others, Kent said.

Decker said that in the last 90 days, there have been 112 mental-health evaluations at the Lake County Jail, 36 emergency cases through Tribal Health for suicide watch, 16 emergency detentions and three involuntary transports for a stay in the Montana State Hospital.

Lake County has a suicide rate twice the national average and 15 percent higher than Montana’s average.

The Lake House would allow patients to stay short term or less than a week before re-evaluation.

“Eighty percent of the admissions we see in our county is for people off their medications,” Decker said. “Seven days is enough time to get back on medication and keep them from being a risk.”

The Western Montana Mental Health Center will run the Lake House and might take over the facility permanently after a period. The facility could create seven to 10 jobs, Decker said.

Kent said the project has been a complex endeavor but one that will pay dividends for the county.

“Lake County is an incredibly diverse and large county,” she said. “This has been an unprecedented level of cooperation between all the parties. They all want this to happen and are committed to this project.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.