Lincoln will continue to have an alternative to jail for people who are very drunk or very high.
The state Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to license the civil protective custody program, run by the nonprofit The Bridge Behavioral Health, where police bring more than 3,600 people a year to be detoxed.
The clients are people arrested for drunken driving and others who are so intoxicated they could be arrested for minor offenses like trespassing or urinating in public.
Bridge director Tammy Stevenson had said she would close the unit if the state refused to license it because medical staff would not likely work in an unlicensed facility.
"This is very welcome news," said Todd Wiltgen, Lancaster County Board chairman.
This is good news for the County Board, the City Council and the public, he said. The Bridge program is a better alternative than transporting these individuals to the jail or a hospital, which is where they would have gone if the detox unit closed, he said.
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The jail is a more expensive option and is not the best place to house people who are very drunk or high, he said.
"We appreciate HHS's work on renewing the license and are very relieved," he said.
The Bridge agreed to moderate its discharge policy in order to meet licensing regulations.
Currently people are held in locked rooms for 24 hours or until their blood alcohol content is zero.
The Bridge will begin checking to see if people can be released when their BAC is less than 0.08 percent, the level for drunken driving.
State licensure staff felt that keeping someone in a locked room until they reached a zero BAC was overly restrictive and not necessary to preserve life, Stevenson told the county’s Justice Council, a group of local criminal justice leaders that meets to look at mutual issues, at a Friday meeting.
The Bridge will begin evaluating consumers for potential discharge earlier using a discharge assessment list, she said.
That list ranges from ensuring people aren't expressing suicidal or homicidal thoughts to making sure they are able to follow a simple direction and can take care of themselves without assistance.
One of the problems with earlier discharge is that people with chronic alcohol problems sometimes get sicker with withdrawal symptoms the closer their BAC gets to zero, said Stevenson.
However, clients will be encouraged to use The Bridge's social detox unit, where people stay voluntarily, she said.
Though the state had licensed and helped fund the detox unit for decades, state officials decided recently the unit's locked-room philosophy violated state rules.
The Bridge has been working for more than a year to negotiate both funding and later licensing issues.
The Bridge was never able to resolve the funding issues and lost about $150,000 a year in state and federal funds because of the accreditation issues related to the locked-room policy.
In order to get accreditation, and keep the $150,000, the state wanted The Bridge to convert to a social detox program.
The Bridge offers an accredited social detoxification program that serves about 160 people a year.
The civil protective custody detoxification program serves a different clientele, people who are often more combative, and is an option to jail. So The Bridge decided not to change its operation and not to seek accreditation, Stevenson said.
The County Board agreed to provide $100,000 to make up for some of the lost funds. The city police and state patrol will likely provide the other $50,000, Stevenson said.
Now that the licensing issue has been settled, The Bridge will look at detoxification programs in other cities to see if any of those options will work in Lincoln, where the program also serves as an alternative to county jail, Stevenson said.