Orange County leaders are now wrapped up in a lawsuit with Mind OC, the nonprofit they partnered with to help launch the county’s Be Well program that was supposed to be the cornerstone of the county’s mental health outreach system.
Now, county Health Care Agency staff have canceled the county’s biggest contracts with Mind OC and announced plans to take over managing all treatment at both the Irvine and Orange sites after letting the nonprofit run things.
The shift comes amidst claims Mind OC has failed to properly oversee their contracts, with critics highlighting how they were forced to shutter their drug treatment program due to fraud and how a county audit found issues with oversight at their mental health campus in Orange.
[Read: Orange County Drops Contract with Flagship Mental Health Nonprofit After Failed Audit]
Now, Mind OC is suing after county staff claimed they violated the lease for their $12 million Orange campus by improperly subleasing the property, which was constructed by Mind OC but built on land leased by the county for $1 a year.
Mind OC’s lawyers claim in the lawsuit that the county accused them of violating the lease as a way to take over running the facility without having to pay the construction costs.
“It has become evident that the County used the Ground Lease, and this dispute, as leverage to push another agenda, which is taking operational control of the Orange Campus and replacing Plaintiff’s staff with those of the County,” Mind OC’s lawyers wrote in the statement signed by CEO Phillip Franks.
To read a copy of the complaint, click here.
Mind OC’s chief program, Be Well OC, was supposed to help connect the mentally ill with county services and offered mobile response teams to address mental health crises and complaints about the homeless.
But over the summer, cities like Anaheim and Newport Beach backed out of homeless outreach contracts with Be Well OC after questions surfaced on just how effective those programs were.
Anaheim instead contracted with CalOptima in September for homeless outreach services in Orange County’s largest city.
Meanwhile, two days after Mind OC’s lawsuit was filed, county leaders announced they were axing the nonprofit’s contract to run the Irvine campus, which is still under construction.
Veronica Kelley, director of the county healthcare agency, said the shift is coming because Mind OC hasn’t helped bring in more money through private health insurance in a statement on Nov. 25.
“This decision follows a four-year evaluation of the partnership at the Orange Campus, where a model involving private insurance providers did not deliver additional resources to benefit the community as intended,” Kelley said.
Spokespeople for the county healthcare agency declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday morning, citing the ongoing litigation.
Mind OC is still set to help manage the Irvine facility as a landlord, but it currently is not set to have any part in healthcare at both campuses.
While the nonprofit proposed creating a committee with the county health care agency to work out any ongoing issues, that proposal never went forward.
Editor’s Note: Bill Taormina sits on the board of both Mind OC and Voice of OC.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.