A new project is coming to East Bethel, Minnesota that will help young people who are working through mental health issues. The Cambia Hills project, originally to be built in Forest Lake, is a residential treatment facility that broke ground on December 18 in East Bethel and will potentially change the lives of its clients and the community.
Full disclosure – I was involved in advocating for this project before I joined the SFHS Media Staff.
“Cambia Hills is located in East Bethel on a 37 acre are south of Our Saviors Church off of Jackson street,” said East Bethel Mayor Steve Voss. “This facility will be in a very heavily wooded area. There are efforts being made to preserve as many trees as possible. Hopefully the facility will be open for operation next year.”
Voss believes the project will also have a huge economic benefit to the community.
“The facility will create 150 jobs that were not there before,” he said. “There also will be jobs open for the upkeep of the facility such as landscaping.”
Along with Voss, Jeff Bradt the CEO of Cambia Hills went before the city council and got a unanimous vote to accept the project. After having been rejected by Forest Lake, the two joined forces to get the project to East Bethel.
This facility will offer children and adolescents who have psychiatric disorders, but who aren’t in need of hospitalization, intensive support. What this means is the child has gone through a hospitalization to stabilize their mental health and make sure they are safe to transition. This means that they are able to contract for safety and are not an immediate crisis concern. Children who will go to this facility will be there for a long term treatment plan, ranging from a month to multiple months.
“The main concerns of the community were about security, increased traffic in the community and decrease in home values in homes nearby.”, said Voss. “Overall, it is not surprising that with a facility of this size coming to a residential area, that there will be some concerns
CEO Jeff Bradt explains technicalities of project
“I wanted to make a design that I could be proud of.” Bradt stated, “The main goal for the design was to make it look different from other mental health treatment centers, I didn’t want it to look like a hospital.”
Architectural renderings provided by Cambia Hills
Jeff Bradt is the CEO of Cambia Hills Youth and Family Services.
The facility will house children ages from 6 to 17 and the average length of stay is 3 to 6 months.
“There will be 150 jobs total, 30 will be teaching jobs the other 120 range from janitors, nurses to psychiatrists,” Bradt said.
The project cost in total is about 30 million dollars, 26.5 million is being paid for through referendums and bonds.
“The rest is being paid for by Cambia Hills corporation.” said Bradt. “The annual compensation and benefits being projected for East Bethel is about 8.5 million dollars.”
He explained the process. There were about six or seven different designs for the building and Brandt had a difficult time weighing the cost and what they wanted for the children.
They had one definite idea in mind, however.
“Each bedroom has a window over viewing the scenery of the woods and wilderness,” he said.
Sue Abderholden (NAMI) explains the morality
“This project is a huge first step in the right direction but there is still lots of work to do to make sure that the youth of Minnesota get the mental health treatment they need.” Abderholden stated, “Anyone can help support this mental health movement they just need to be willing to take action. What is most helpful is when people come forward and share their stories involving mental illness.”
Architectural renderings provided by Cambia Hills
Sue Abderholden is the Executive Eirector of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI )in Minnesota.
“NAMI was involved in this project by helping pass the legislation at the state capital that originally helped the project first take place,” said Abderholden.
When she attended the meeting in Forest Lake where the original project was supposed to be built, she was extremely disappointed when they turned it down.
“Honestly, I was really excited to hear that East Bethel had accepted the project,” Abderholden said, “My first thought with this news is it is about time. It is very gratifying to see this project taking place.”
