Mental health center approved in 2004 remains closed while Miami-Dade County leaders delay plans

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

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

The measure passed overwhelmingly.

That was more than 23 years ago. 

The center had yet to be opened 

For many years, the project was stalled. But two years ago, the promise made to voters appeared to be on the verge of being kept. The county completed restoration of a building using $50 million of the bond money voters approved in 2004. 

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

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

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

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

Everything was ready. Everything was set.

And yet, the center is still waiting to be opened.

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

He tells those visitors he hopes to have it open soon.

Soon. It always seems to be just a few months away. And yet, the center at the heart of his plan is still waiting to be opened.

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

And while the mayor and the county commission delay, and delay, and delay some more, the center remains closed and the folks who this center was designed to help continue to suffer.

So, what is happening?

Well, last fall, even though 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 wanted to take over the building.

They even hired a big-time lobbying firm, the Southern Group, and lobbyist Oscar Braynon.

After Recovery Solutions and Brayonon went to work behind the scenes at the county commission, the final approval Leifman needed to open the center started getting bogged down in one commission committee after another.

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

The mayor never informed Leifman or County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who was working with Leifman to get the center open, that there was another proposal floating around.

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

"It's pretty disheartening, and it's very disappointing," Leifman told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede. "And it was very unexpected because all of this happened right after we had finished everything, and we were ready to open. And so, if there were true concerns and true issues, they should have been raised years in advance. This went through so much vetting, so much analysis, and everything that we are doing with this building; it's not hypothetical or theoretical. We know exactly who needs to come in the building. We have a list of the individuals. We know who is costing the county so much money. And we know that they're not getting better and they're cycling through crime, homelessness, hospitalization, again and again and again."

Right now, there's a system where people with mental illnesses are arrested for homelessness or minor drug charges. They then sit in jail for weeks or months at a time, before getting released and then re-arrested a short time later.

It 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 individuals who keep getting arrested, and released, and arrested again.

If you look at just the top five people on that list, in the last five years, those five individuals alone were arrested 142 times and spent nearly 4,000 days in jail. And again, that's not involving serious offenses. The reality is, their crime is being mentally ill.

The center looks to break the cycle 

This is not just an insane system; it is a cruel one.

This center could break that cycle by getting them the specialized treatment that the jail cannot and does not provide. It would 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 she received the proposal from the for-profit company, Recovery Solutions, and she had one of her department directors meet with representatives from the company. She also admitted speaking to the company's lobbyist, Braynon, about the proposal.

Asked why she kept it a secret and never informed Leifman or Regalado, Cava claimed she did not think the proposal was complete or worth discussing.

"I think you might not realize this, but we get contacted by hundreds of vendors every day for all sorts of things," Cava said. "We provided a courtesy meeting with our director. It was not appropriate to proceed at that time. It wasn't complete, and we already were well underway with the non-profit groups, which had been selected to run the facility." 

Cava said she remains committed to getting the center open. And urged the county commission to move quickly on it.

Whether they do move 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 slow down the opening so that this for-profit company – or perhaps some other group we don't know about – can come along 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 across our community with mental illnesses who will continue to suffer.