New Kansas City psychiatric hospital sparks resistance among Northeast residents

Residents in Kansas City’s historic Northeast neighborhood say plans for a state psychiatric hospital on the site of a former housing project and city park clash with plans for revitalizing their community.

They’re losing patience with efforts to base ever more social services near their homes that they fear could make their streets a dumping ground for the city’s problems.

“This will define one of our most important intersections, and I don’t know if defining it this way is healthy,” said Kate Barsotti, an artist and former president of the Columbus Park Community Council. “Is that shallow? Maybe. Could be. But I do understand people feeling sandbagged and disrespected and betrayed.”

Meanwhile, the city, the state and University Health (formerly Truman Medical Center) see the psychiatric facility as an economic boon and a key part of what the region needs to deal with growing mental health demands.

The Missouri Department of Mental Health estimates the hospital could open in late 2027 or early 2028 — if everything moves smoothly. And the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development could be a significant stumbling block to the plan.

Serving the courts

The roughly 20-acre parcel eyed for the psychiatric hospital used to be Belvidere Park and Chouteau Courts, a public housing complex. The tract is near the intersection of The Paseo and Independence Avenue.

In June 2020, the Housing Authority of Kansas City, Missouri, finished demolishing the crumbling Chouteau Courts. The demolition came as part of the sweeping Paseo Gateway community revitalization project, funded through a $30 million grant from HUD. 

The new psychiatric hospital would be a one-level, 300,000-square-foot building on a triangular parcel between The Paseo to the east and Interstate 35 to the west. The new hospital would have 200 beds and generally serve the western half of the state.

In tandem with the state’s Center for Behavioral Medicine, which is located on Hospital Hill, the new psychiatric hospital would take on a growing statewide backlog of more than 350 criminal defendants languishing in local jails as they await mental health treatment.

Judges have ordered those inmates into the care of the department to see if it can restore their competency to stand trial, but DMH has nowhere to treat those people (with limited exceptions). DMH Director Valerie Huhn said the waiting list could reach 500 people by the end of this year.

The department said about one-fifth of the pending cases fall in the Kansas City region. It already operates 65 competency-restoration beds (intended to get defendants mentally well enough to stand trial) at the Center for Behavioral Medicine. The new hospital would boost that total to 100 beds while those at the existing facility would be repurposed.

University Health would use the other beds for short-term psychiatric treatment generally lasting two weeks or less. Patients would get psychiatric care medication management and referrals to outpatient programs. The health system would reserve 25 of its beds for referrals from the Kansas City Municipal Court or other providers in the city. 

University Health would also operate a psychiatric emergency department at the hospital, something law enforcement turns to avoid taking them to a conventional emergency room or jail.

University Health closed its psychiatric emergency department in 2015, but Chief Executive Officer Charlie Shields said it faces fewer regulatory hurdles in operating as part of a psychiatric hospital.

Critically, it lightens the load for the Center for Behavioral Medicine so it can concentrate on long-term care that can average stays of nine years for treating conditions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

A psychiatric emergency room “allows us to catch people before they get to a point of committing a crime, especially in that Jackson County area,” Huhn said, “and then give them … resources so that they don’t commit crimes and have to go through this whole process.”

Huhn and others tout the safety of the proposed new hospital. It will have a perimeter fence. Patient units will be locked. In that way, it will operate like similar state facilities near residential areas in other parts of the state.

Supporters also say the hospital will offer additional training to area medical programs. It will also open more inpatient beds and fix some of the problems created decades ago when mental health care shifted to community-based care while failing to create enough psychiatric support outside institutions.

At the same time, they see the hospital as an economic jump-start to the surrounding area.

Projections include 600-plus health care jobs (from entry-level to physicians and nurses), an annual boost of $60 million to the area economy, and the bump associated with a $300 million construction project.

Overall, the project is “an exceptional idea and way in which we can better utilize our land in a way that would be beneficial for our community more broadly,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. “This shows that this is a new day on Independence, Paseo and lots of streets many Kansas Citians don’t think about enough.”

Choice neighborhoods

Those thoroughfares were in the limelight in September 2015. 

HUD Secretary Julian Castro came to town then to announce a federal grant to Kansas City to tear down the Chouteau Courts public housing project and support the Paseo Gateway District. The housing authority relocated the last of the Chouteau Courts residents to seven new developments in June.

Meanwhile, a range of nonprofit and government agencies have been working to revitalize the neighborhood. Plans included a mix of affordable single-family homes and apartments alongside commercial developments and a public space for community events.

Barsotti, the Columbus Park artist, and Michael Bushnell, a longtime resident of the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood and former publisher of the Northeast News newspaper, fume that the psychiatric hospital will dash those dreams. 

What’s more, the psychiatric hospital project comes on the heels of a city plan to establish a low-barrier homeless shelter at Hope Faith Homeless Assistance Campus at 705 Virginia Ave.

“There needs to be a big ‘no.’ Not here. Go somewhere else,” Bushnell said. “We were promised a completely different development for Chouteau Court. … That’s the plan that needs to be followed.”

Shields said he received positive feedback about the psychiatric center from residents who attended a community information meeting held in August. But detractors said that instead of gathering input, the meeting organizers informed attendees about a done deal.

HUD’s role

HUD could throw a wrench into the financial plans for the psychiatric hospital by requiring the housing authority to sell the former Chouteau Courts property for full market value.

The construction plan assumes the state will acquire the property at little or no cost.

Chouteau Courts was appraised at $1.6 million this year. Any potential environmental cleanup costs would be deducted from that value, said housing authority Executive Director Edwin Lowndes.

Lowndes said paperwork could be submitted to HUD in time for a decision from the agency by the end of November.

HUD can approve a sale for less than market value if it decides the deal has a public good, typically more public housing or projects that benefit people living in public housing. Lucas said the groundbreaking could come early next year. 

The mayor acknowledged that residents have been frustrated about the start-and-stop nature of various proposals for the neighborhood. But he said such projects are inherently complicated and don’t always follow original plans.

Barsotti said any lack of follow-through breeds disillusionment.

“It’s really hard,” she said, “to tell people to keep engaging with your city government when it doesn’t seem to work, when they can’t trust what they’re told, when they don’t understand what they’re told, or there’s no time to deal with a big change.” 

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