COMPASS Gets A New Home

The city’s non-cop crisis response team now has a central location on Winthrop Avenue where first responders can bring adults who need short-term help for substance use and mental health challenges — while keeping them out of hospitals.

After years of planning, city officials joined local social services nonprofit Continuum of Care for a Wednesday morning grand opening and ribbon cutting outside of the center located at 310 Winthrop Ave.

Named the REST Center — Rapid Evaluation, Stabilization, and Treatment — the hub is operated by Continuum, and will be the home base for Compassionate Allies Serving Our Streets (COMPASS), which the city contracts with Continuum to run.

The REST Center had a soft opening in mid-May and has already served 140 people, per the nonprofit.

The idea is that the COMPASS response team will bring individuals in crisis who need a little more support back to the center to settle down — as long as they don’t need to go to the emergency room. There will be a focus on those who are experiencing homelessness.

On site will be experienced clinicians, case managers, peer counselors, and nurses, who will perform professional evaluations, provide basic needs, and help connect individuals to additional care and resources. While the projected stay for those in need is up to 23 hours, there are six beds for anyone who might need to stay a little longer until they can get to a longer-term facility. This might be a treatment center, more stable housing, or a crisis residential program.

At any given point, five to six staff members are on site, and they always include an APRN, a nurse, a peer, and a social worker, according to Continuum.

Continuum President and CEO Jim Farrales, who recently stepped up after the July 1 retirement of longtime President Patti Walker, noted that the adult center is the first of its kind of in the state to ​“provide these necessary services outside of a hospital.”

“We now have the third piece of the continuum — a place to go,” said Commissioner Nancy Navarretta of the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. The doors will be open ​“24/7,” she said. ​“Regardless of how an individual gets here, they will find the help that they need.”

State Rep. Patricia Dillon, who said she once lived down the street, called the center a ​“smart, humane way to care for people.” She also took some time to criticize the state legislature — ​“the state should do more,” she said. The state’s fiscal guardrails put more strain on cities.

As COMPASS nears two years since its initial launch, Mayor Justin Elicker praised the program, stating that while local police initially resisted the peer- and social worker-driven crisis response team, ​“now officers regularly call up and say, ​‘We need COMPASS.’ ”

Oftentimes, Elicker noted, COMPASS isn’t able to help someone in distress right on scene. With the new center, ​“people can settle down.”

310 Winthrop is a three-family home that Continuum bought from Ocean Management for $375,000 in March 2023. Continuum later won permission from the Board of Zoning Appeals to convert that property into six ​“crisis beds”

Continuum Vice President of Acute and Forensic Services John Labieniec, who is also the COMPASS coordinator, explained that the model for 310 Winthrop is based on similar models that Labieniec looked at in states like Arizona and Colorado. He noted that the saying often goes ​“Yale or jail” when it comes to the options for those in crisis, and this model of ​“crisis stabilization units” is intended to keep people comfortable and out of busy hospitals.

According to Vice President of Marketing & Fund Development Deborah Cox, individuals opt into going to the REST Center. The staff expects walk-ins. People can refuse to be brought to the center, even if COMPASS responders encourage them. ​“The REST program is completely voluntary,” she said. As for exiting the center, individuals are discharged formally, ​“but if they decide to walk out, that too is their right.”

Labieniec added that, if staff feel it’s unsafe for people to leave, they will call a statewide mobile crisis team that may take them to the hospital.

A tour of the facility led by Director of Emergency Response Services Yichu Xu showed storage for temporary tenants, kitchen and bathroom space, laundry machines, and offices for staff.

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton said that while the idea was at first a building with ​“a lot of question marks … it’s a blessing to our neighborhood.”