Home for mentally ill patients opens

Art Nadler

Thursday, July 29, 1999 | 10:41 a.m.

The state Division of Mental Hygiene and Mental Retardation officially opened Southern Nevada's first intermediate residential home for mental health patients Wednesday.

The 6,800-square foot home, located at 5763 W. Oakey Blvd., will house 16 clients who are unable to care for themselves independently, but don't require hospitalization. The facility will be called the Bruce Adams Community Residential Treatment Center.

The center is named after Bruce Adams, former chairman of the state Mental Health Advisory Board. He died of leukemia three years ago at age 48.

Clients are expected to begin moving in around mid-August.

Dr. James Northrop, state agency director, said mental health patients will be able to stay from 90 to 120 days. They will learn such daily living activity skills as cooking, housekeeping and personal hygiene.

The residents will pay $180 a day, compared to $340 a day in a mental hospital, Northrop said. Potential residents will be considered for admission if they meet three criteria: showing symptoms of clinically diagnosed mental illness and being unable to care for themselves in a community setting and having been admitted to a mental hospital several times.

Dr. Carlos Brandenburg, division administrator, said the residential home is designed for anyone who is diagnosed with mental illness in the community and needs 24-hour supervision. The home will also act as a step-down facility for patients leaving a mental hospital and who are unable to care for themselves independently.

Northrop said there are 70 people on a waiting list to be admitted to the residential home. There currently are 350 mental health patients living on their own in the community, he said.

"This is a place my brother would have loved," Brent Adams, a Reno District Court judge, said. "It will be his living legacy."

Brandenburg said the residential home will provide more supervised treatment than individuals receive in group homes.

Money to purchase the $500,000 home and provide supervision was funded by the 1997 Legislature, Brandenburg said.