MANSFIELD — The Richland County Mental Health & Recovery Services Board plans to build an apartment complex for mentally ill residents at the corner of East First Street and South Franklin Avenue.
The Richland County Land Bank this week transferred property at 100 E. First St. to the mental health organization.
That property, along with land the board already owned at the site, will allow for the development of a $1.8 million complex that will offer a dozen, one-bedroom apartments that offers permanent, supportive housing.
Mental Health Board Executive Director Joe Trolian told Land Bank board members there is a need for these apartments, an effort that is identified in the organization’s five-year strategic plan from 2023 to 2028.
“These are specific for people with severe mental illness. We have a lot of individuals (who) can live independently,” Trolian said.
“But we have found that when they go to live in a general apartment complex, they tend to be preyed upon. They are very open to being liked and having friends, because they’ve struggled with that in the past,” he said.
“They tend to also wind up being the place where you’ll find stolen property being stored … drugs being stored. They’re not using the drugs, they’re holding them for a friend.
“So we have worked real hard to at least come up with some locations that people can utilize,” Trolian said.
Under the city’s zoning codes, the planned new complex could not be built without the additional parcel, Trolian said.
Richland County Mental Health board strategic plan
“We tried every possible positioning on the land that we have. If we want to stick with the 12, we need the additional land or we’re going to need to shrink the building to eight (units),” he said.
Trolian said the mental health organization has already obtained architectural drawings for the complex and bids from contractors will be sought.
“I would love to be able to do at least a symbolic groundbreaking during (National) Recovery Month in September,” he said.
The agency will contract with Catalyst Life Services to mange the complex and support the residents.
“Everybody who comes through there has a a severe mental illness. It’s permanent supportive, so it’s just like a regular apartment.
“They’re under lease contract, tenant-landlord laws, things like that,” he said.
The Richland County Mental Health & Recovery Services Board already has other apartment complexes in Mansfield for mentally ill residents, some permanent and some transitional.
It also has an eight-unit complex on Grandview Avenue that houses young adults as they transition out of the foster care system, which opened in 2017.
“Grandview is actually going great,” Trolian told the Land Bank board, adding most residents stay for about a year, though some stay longer.
“It’s for youth that are young adults, ages 18 to 21, usually coming out of either foster placement, coming out of DYS facilities, or coming out of residential care that really never learned independent living skills,” he said.
“It’s not a treatment facility, per se, (but) it is staffed. We use peer support specialists. It’s people with lived experience with either mental health or addiction and then they work with the youth to just kind of give them some support.
“I always said with that age group, I wanted some staff there because I know how I was in college and I didn’t want (it) to turn into a dorm,” Trolian said.
“For the most part, the young folks do real well. We will get a challenge every so often. But probably in the past five years, I think we’ve (had) 27 youth through there. It’s done very well,” he said.
