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Despite some resistance, construction of a 220,000-square-foot psychiatric hospital in Junction City appears to be inevitable.

Over the next several weeks, the Oregon Legislature’s Ways and Means subcommittee on capital construction will consider Senate Bill 5507, which allocates $79.4 million in bond money for construction of the hospital (among other things). Three more public hearings on the bill are scheduled for this month; however, with approximately $30 million already spent on site work in Junction City, the decision to move forward likely is a mere formality.

“We’ll have public hearings, then we’ll listen and then we’ll take a vote,” said House Majority Leader Val Hoyle, D-West Eugene/Junction City, who has helped champion the project. “There is no indication that people will be voting ‘no’ on the state hospital. It’s in the governor’s budget. It’s in the co-chair’s budget. It’s ready to roll.”

The Junction City project would create 1,800 construction jobs. It’s one of two projects that were identified to replace the Oregon State Hospital in Salem with $458.1 million allocated by the 2007 Legislature. State leaders say a facility in Junction City is needed to replace an aging, 60-bed hospital in Pendleton, and 92 leased beds in Portland that are nearing the end of their contract with no option for renewal.

Opponents – mostly advocates for mental health services – would rather see money earmarked for construction to support smaller, community-based programs. The Mental Health Association of Portland last week circulated a petition, addressed to House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-North/Northeast Portland that urged her to stop the project.

“(The Junction City project) seems to be more of a construction project for Val Hoyle’s and (Senate President) Peter Courtney’s (Salem) districts than it is for the needs and wishes of families and friends with mental illness,” said Jason Renaud, a volunteer at MHAP. “(We have) a community-based mental health system that is radically underfunded by the Legislature. If they could put that money to work in the communities, we could stop people from getting so sick that they need to go to a hospital.”

Hoyle said MHAP’s petition is unrealistic and shortsighted. The campaign, she said, does not offer any solutions for relocating individuals with acute mental health issues when their facilities close – the Portland facility’s lease agreement with Legacy Emanuel Medical Center expires in 2015.

Hoyle said she fully supports community-based treatment, and generally prefers the least restrictive measures possible. But not everyone – especially those who would be guilty of violent crimes if not for insanity – can be treated at the community level.

“The bottom line is you have to have a continuum of care,” she said. “That means everything from the most basic community access to acute hospital care.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s budget calls for $28 million to go to community mental health and addiction services, while House Bill 2056 seeks to create a path for diverting costs from long-term, institutional beds to community-based care programs.

Potential operating costs at the Junction City facility worry project opponents. Chris Bouneff, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Health Illness in Oregon, estimates that each bed will cost $300,000 per year (or $52.2 million for 174 beds). He believes that money would be more effectively spent at the community level.

Without the Junction City facility, however, the state reports that it would need to increase staffing and operating costs at the Portland and Pendleton facilities by $28 million. With that figure taken into account, the overall cost increase for operations with the Junction City hospital would be just $11 million, according to the state.

The federal government provides subsidies for mental health facilities with 16 beds or less, but not for hospitals. The budget to operate the Junction City hospital will rely heavily on general fund dollars.

Rep. Dennis Richardson, R-Central Point, thinks the Junction City hospital will be an irreversible drain on the state’s resources.

“(It’s) going to be like a large sponge sucking up dollars for administration and operations that otherwise could have been used for community mental health purposes,” he said. “Those in power have the ability to send this through, and hoist it on the backs of those who have to pay for it, and the administration for decades to come.”

The size of the Junction City hospital has been reduced from 360 beds to 174 for a net gain over current facilities of 22 beds. Hoyle said the hope is to wean the state from its dependence on such a facility altogether by investing in community-based programs. In seven to 10 years, Oregon State Hospital hopes to hand the facility over to the Department of Corrections so it can treat inmates with mental illnesses.

Bouneff said that would indeed be helpful, but he questions whether it will happen. He hopes legislators follow through with promises to invest in community mental health programs.

SB 5507 is on course to move from the subcommittee to the full Ways and Means Committee. Then the bill would go to the House floor and the Senate floor before landing on the governor’s desk. MHAP’s petition likely won’t have a lot of sway.

“They want to stop the project, but there’s not an actual plan of what to do or where to house the people that are currently in the state hospitals, and they’re certainly not dealing with the forensic population,” Hoyle said. “They have a right to put out a petition, but it’s effectively a done deal.”