The city of Bowling Green has released a plan to improve access to mental health and substance abuse treatment while relieving the strain on law enforcement, jails, and hospitals.
The Bowling Green Police Department responded to more than 900 mental health calls in 2023, but that agency alone can’t deal with some of the underlying causes of mental illness like poverty, homelessness and substance abuse.
The city of Bowling Green is proposing a $23 million treatment center where a person in crisis can receive immediate treatment and often bypass incarceration and hospital emergency rooms. While not a long-term residential facility, the center would work like a triage center, attempting to de-escalate individuals in crisis before evaluating them for a course of treatment.
“Unfortunately, as much as we are trained to deal with this in de-escalation techniques, there’s only so much we can do locally and we transport these individuals out of Warren County to Hopkinsville," said Warren County Sheriff Brett Hightower. "This is unfortunate because it takes them away from their families who may not have the ability to visit them. Also, the care and assistance they may need, it takes them away from the resources they have in their community, as well."
Hightower spoke Monday at Bowling Green City Hall as part of a 30-member committee formed last year to confront the growing need for mental health treatment in the community.
"We need this facility that will really impact the health and well-being of our citizens and get them productive, get them the help they need on the front end, and not wait until they get into the judicial system," said Committee Chair and Mayor Pro Tem Sue Parrigin.
State Rep. Kevin Jackson of Bowling Green said he supports the proposal after learning from local law enforcement how much time they spend responding to mental health calls.
“On the average, it was four hours they spend with those individuals," Jackson said. "Then they told me if they end up having to take them to Western State Hospital in Hopkinsville, they can hold them for three days, and they’ll get a call in three days about the same person. They’re out and back to doing the same thing.”
Warren County Jailer Stephen Harmon said in 2023, the 562-bed Warren County Regional Jail saw 638 inmates on average each day. He added 90% of that population had current or a past history of mental illness.
The proposed Bowling Green facility would be modeled after the Mental Health Cooperative based in Nashville that the committee visited in 2023.
LifeSkills would donate the land and staff the proposed treatment center on its campus just off Lovers Lane. LifeSkills is the community mental health center for the ten-county Barren River Area Development District.
The Kentucky Legislature will be asked to help fund construction.
