Stakeholders of Proposed True North Behavioral Health Campus Make a Presentation and Answer Questions at Well-Attended Town Hall Event
- Elisa Ballard
- Dec 9, 2025
- 8 min read
December 8, 2025
Redding, CA – Board of Supervisor Matt Plummer (District 4), led a well-attended town hall event on Monday evening at the Dignity Health Connected Living to provide more details to the public about the True North Behavioral Health Campus proposed for Shasta County by Signature Healthcare Services, and to answer as many questions as possible. Funding for the campus is not a certainty and won’t be known until late spring 2026, when the State’s Department of Health Care Services makes its determination on the grant application submitted by Signature Healthcare Services with the help of ARCH Collaborative. The State has $800 million in funds available for this last round of funding. The total cost of the project would be $206,166,000 with $164,680,000 requested from the State’s Prop 1 BHCIP* Bond and $41,487,000 invested by Signature Health Services. Plummer stated that he first became aware of Proposition 1 that set aside $6 billion to fund behavioral health infrastructure while he was a candidate for Supervisor two years ago. He was also informed of a need for medical detox beds when he was contacted by Dr. Mercedes Patee, Emergency Medicine Specialist in Redding.
Kimberly Johnson of ARCH Collaborative stated that she was very aware of a gap in mental health services that was needing to be filled, and having the skill set required to help with the grant application process, she decided to take the lead in looking for a mental healthcare provider that would be willing to provide the needed services in Shasta County. The BHCIP grant prioritizes providing mental health and substance abuse services for the un-housed, veterans, children, youth, and under-served rural counties. The one-year process in preparing the grant application involved engaging over 200 key stakeholders, reviewing over 40 assessments and audits on behavioral health in the rural counties, and forming the Shasta Health Assessment and Redesign Collaborative’s (SHARC) BHCIP Ad Hoc Committee. From December to May, the SHARC Committee met monthly. Then from June 1st to October 28, the concept for the proposal was put together. Johnson gathered needed letters of support for the project that were submitted with the application and continued receiving and submitting the letters up until November 28th. Initially, Johnson identified three primary mental healthcare providers in California, contacting all three, with Signature Healthcare Services being the only one who was willing to expand into the far Northern California area. Without the grant money for the infrastructure, the project would not be financially feasible.
Johnson stated that there has been a revolving door of crisis here in Shasta County due to a lack of mental health services. The Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA provides guidelines for a proper behavioral health crisis response, describing three pillars that are needed: 1) Someone to Contact, 2) Someone to Respond, and 3) A Safe Place to Go. While the County has providers to adequately provide for pillars 1 and 2, pillar 3 is sorely lacking. Many times, individuals facing a mental health or substance abuse crisis are housed in hospital emergency rooms, sometimes they are housed in the jail, and/or they are transported out of the area where there are beds and services available to them. Being housed in facilities far from home is particularly difficult for the patients and their families.
Alan Eaks, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Signature Healthcare Services (SHS), spoke about his company’s commitment to providing 30 years of services to Medi-Cal patients at the proposed campus. The company was founded by a psychiatrist who saw a need for specialized mental healthcare services and wanted to fulfill the need for access to care. The company has grown over the 25 years they have been in business, now operating 18 hospitals nationwide with nine in California. Over the last 25 years, over 800,000 patients have been treated by Signature Healthcare Services.
SHS is currently in escrow for a 20-acre property owned by the McConnell Foundation in the City of Shasta Lake that is contingent upon SHS receiving the grant award. The campus will be a secure facility that will take patients for up to 30-day stays.
The proposed True North Behavioral Health Campus will include:
- Crisis Stabilization Units: 8 chairs (spaces) for adults, 4 for children/youth (<23 hours)
- Social Rehabilitation Facility: 16 beds for short-term stays (social detox and return-to-county planning)
- Inpatient Psychiatric Units: Three 16-bed adult psychiatric hospital facilities
- High-Acuity Youth Residential Unit: 16 secured treatment beds
- Partial Hospitalization / Intensive Outpatient Program: 20 chairs (5 hours/day, 5 days/week)
The plan to is to take patients from the northern California counties and then, upon discharge, the patients will be transported back to their home counties. Last year, 347 patients were sent out of Shasta County for behavioral health treatment. The County should realize a 50% savings costs by keeping patients in the County.
A panel of community leaders who have experience with mental health service needs in Shasta County were seated on the stage at the town hall to speak to the attendees about their observations and answer questions. They were:
Gene Randall, Undersheriff for Shasta County, runs the jail.
Christie Coleman, Shasta County Director of Health and Human Services
Jo Campbell, CEO, Hill Country Community Clinic, Mobile Crisis Outreach Team
Dr. Douglas McMullin, Family Physician
Dr. Michelle Sager, Psychiatrist
C. Dean Germano, retired CEO of Shasta Community Health Center; Chair of the Children’s Legacy Center; and Board Member of the McConnell Foundation
Greta Hill, Senior Director of Emergency and Critical Care Services, Mercy Hospital
Patrick Comstock, Sierra-Sacramento Valley EMS Agency Deputy Director
All of the above spoke about the critical lack of beds in Shasta County to treat mental health and substance abuse patients and effective January 1, 2026, with the passage of Senate Bill 43, which expanded the criteria for 5150 holds, there will be an even greater need for beds.***
Dr. McMullin gave a very poignant example of a 14-year-old patient of his who spent a whole week in the ER waiting for a bed to open up.
Dr. Sager stated that having a treatment center nearby would be helpful because many times in her practice she has witnessed the need for the whole family to be involved for successful outcomes to come about.
Patrick Comstock gave his opinion that he believes Shasta County patients alone will be enough to fill the new campus due to the large mental health and substance abuse cases that he sees currently. His team gets, on average, two emergency transport calls per day for these types of patients.
Undersheriff Randall stated that it takes 14 staff per shift to operate the jail safely. Unfortunately, the jail functions as a de facto mental health facility. The jail is dealing with people with suicidal tendencies, acute alcohol and drug intoxication, people who are deemed incompetent to stand trial. Decisions need to be made daily about people who require medical attention. If they need to be taken to the hospital, it impacts the number of staff that is left to operate the jail.
In response to a question about what are the responsibilities of the County with regard to mental health services, Christie Coleman explained that the County has many responsibilities including certifying the facility to serve Medi-Cal patients, auditing the facility, billing for providers, ensuring that 5150 holds are being upheld correctly for the PUF (psychiatric urgent facility) facilities and do chart audits on site.
Christie Coleman spoke with Shasta Unfiltered after the meeting and was asked about why the County didn’t take a lead in requesting funds to expand the number of beds and run a county mental health hospital as some other counties do. She stated that it was not financially feasible for the county to do so because of the relatively small size of Shasta County. Another question was asked as to why the County doesn’t reserve the mental health beds that are available in the County rather than letting those beds fill up with out-of-County patients. She answered by saying that each patient has varying needs and each facility has criteria about which patients they won’t accept based on past bad behaviors such as sexual offenders, patients that get into fights with other patients, patients that need specialized care, etc. Therefore, it is not cost effective to reserve the beds.
Jo Campbell spoke about her Mobile Crisis Outreach Team, that provides 24/7 access to mobile mental health care anywhere in Shasta County. The Hill Country Care Center is also open in downtown Redding and takes walk-ins. The challenge is where to take the person, beyond the hospital emergency room. She stated that we urgently need psychiatric care access to someone who can prescribe medication.
Hill spoke about the fact that Mercy Hospital is opening 6 beds for behavioral health patients to allow for 23-hour observation of the patient. Mental health patients sometimes are kept in the Emergency Room for far too long due to difficulties finding placements for the patient. In some cases, days go by and even months, before a suitable bed is found for the patient.
According to Alan Eaks, there is a shortage of mental healthcare staff and doctors all over California. Dr. Sager stated we have very few psychiatrists (possibly only two now) serving Shasta County with those numbers dwindling over the last 15 years. Eaks said his company has invested in a high-level recruitment team throughout all of their hospitals, but acknowledged there will be a smaller pool of workers to draw on in Shasta County. He will be working with ARCH Collaborative about applying for grants for developing and training Signature Healthcare’s workforce. Johnson stated that additionally SHARC will be working on this issue. There will be a need for about 220 employees at the True North Campus and possibly a need for four psychiatrists on site. SHS might use some virtual service providers but they will try to avoid that since in-person services are more effective.
Johnson and Plummer stated that they will post all questions and answers so the public will be able to get the information they are seeking about the project. Also, Matt Plummer stated that a recording of the meeting will be available for viewing at some time in the future.
*BHCIP funds refer to grants awarded through California's Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP), a state initiative administered by the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS). Launched in 2021 via budget legislation (AB 128, SB 144), the program provides competitive grants to address critical shortages in behavioral health facilities, including mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment infrastructure. These funds support the construction, acquisition, rehabilitation, and expansion of properties to create a full continuum of care—from crisis stabilization and residential treatment to supportive housing and mobile crisis services—prioritizing underserved populations like those experiencing homelessness, Medi-Cal beneficiaries, youth, veterans, and Tribal communities.
** ARCH Collaborative is a fictitious business name (DBA) of Children’s Legacy Center.
*** The primary changes to the definitions relevant to 5150 holds (involuntary 72-hour psychiatric detentions under California's Welfare and Institutions Code § 5150) stem from Senate Bill 43 (SB 43), which was signed into law on October 10, 2023. This bill expanded the definition of "grave disability" to include conditions resulting from severe substance use disorders (or co-occurring with mental health disorders), with new specifics around inability to provide for personal safety or necessary medical care—even if support from others is available. The amendments became effective statewide on January 1, 2024, but counties were granted the option to defer implementation of these expanded criteria until as late as January 1, 2026, via a resolution from their governing body. As a result, the rollout has varied by county.
