Colville residents rally against plans to upgrade behavioral health facility, saying ‘small, conservative town’ isn’t the right fit

A plan to upgrade a behavioral health facility in Colville has sparked community outcry.

Colville’s Planning Commission recommended on Nov. 4 that the Colville City Council pass a six-month moratorium on behavioral health facility applications, after community members held rallies against facilities in the area.

Over 100 residents showed up to the planning meeting that evening, with 30 people sharing statements opposing the facilities.

Colville resident Nicole Wells, alongside other community members, held a rally Nov. 4 in downtown Colville . The event featured guest speakers, including a former nurse, local business owners and ex-addicts. From there, protesters attended the planning commission meeting and expressed opposition to behavioral health facilities in the area.

Northeast Washington Alliance Counseling Services is receiving $2 million from the Washington State Department of Commerce for a crisis stabilization facility in Colville.

Nine other counties also won grants to construct new behavioral health facilities.

The funds in Colville would be used to purchase and renovate a building into a 14-bed crisis stabilization facility.

“The people in these rural communities, we believe in accountability and personal responsibility, and one thing that really came out at our rally and came out at the meeting, is that’s not what the community wants,” Wells said.

“They would rather see something like Union Gospel Mission, where, you know, they’re helping people get away from drugs, not prescribe them another legal opiate, which is what’s also happening in these harm reduction programs.”

Alongside the behavioral health facilities, harm reduction programs have also been part of the strategy to prevent overdoses and substance misuse. Through these efforts, they distribute naloxone, connect individuals to overdose education and counseling, and promote connections to care facilities.

David Nielsen, executive director of Northeast Washington Alliance Counseling Services, said community members are misunderstanding the situation.

Nielsen said other than the grant they received for their crisis stabilization facility, there aren’t behavioral health facilities proposed for the area.

Nielsen said the alliance plans to purchase a building that would replace a house the organization already has next to the main outpatient behavioral health facility.

The house, Nielsen said, has been used for the past 23 years in case someone were to have a mental health crisis and they are trying to keep them out of the inpatient psychiatric hospital.

“In the current house, we have a capacity for 11 individuals, and in the new facility, we’re going up to 12 individuals,” Nielsen said.

“People are saying that we’re expanding services and we’re bringing in dangerous people, but all we’re doing is the same thing that we’ve done for the past 23 years.”

He said residents are also becoming concerned because the city has drafted guidelines for future behavioral health facilities.

“There’s no plans for any other behavioral health facility to come in, but people are concerned about it because the city is working on these zoning rules in case at some point in the future, five or 10 or 20 years from now, some other facility tries to come in; the city is just trying to be prepared for that,” Nielsen said.

Michael Roque, who spoke at one of the rallies, said he doesn’t believe behavioral health facilities are effective and said programs could bring a “drug culture” to the community.

Roque, ex-fentanyl and cocaine addict, said he went to rehab for two weeks in June in Tacoma and felt that even after those two weeks, he was afraid he’d go back to using.

That’s when he decided to check himself into U Turn For Christ, a faith-based program, for two months.

“That was enough to transform me, one and done – I’m completely sober,” Roque said. “I don’t even desire to do that anymore, which that was a big thing for me, is I always desired. It was always on my mind. Now it’s not – that, to me, is a miracle. It saved my life.”

He said the biggest difference for him between rehab and the faith-based program was their approaches.

He said that while he was in rehab, they’ll give you drugs throughout the day, such as Suboxone and pain relievers, and give you the “freedom to do whatever you want,” whereas at faith-based programs, they will cut off any of those drugs and will take them out to volunteer at nonprofit organizations.

“Not only are you now conditioning your body to get stronger, but you’re learning to help others and to be an asset to your community,” Roque said.

Roque added that by putting the behavioral health facilities in Colville and across the state in other smaller towns, it would bring people from those bigger cities into these communities and cause issues that weren’t there before.

This includes high crime rates, homeless people on the streets and companies shutting down, he said.

“What they’re doing is they’re forcing a small town, a conservative town, that doesn’t have these issues, to now take on the weight of these big towns that have these issues,” Roque said.

Erin Ferrier, Colville resident who supports future behavioral health facilities in the area, said the opposition could cause bigger problems for the town in the future, such as needed rezoning for additional housing options during a severe housing crisis.

“We live in an historically underserved area. Our population is growing and continues to grow, so as the population increases, so does the need for services,” Ferrier said.

Colville isn’t the first town in northwest Washington where residents have recently rallied against behavioral health projects.

Residents of Chewelah filled a town hall meeting with 150 concerned citizens in 2023 after learning about a proposed behavioral health wing at a Chewelah facility, Quail Hollow.

Quail Hollow Owners Kenton Cox and Sharee Kromei had secured $1.6 million in grant funding to construct the wing, located across from the high school, with residents largely opposing it.

The city stepped in and passed an emergency moratorium in early February last year to re-evaluate the situation.

In August , Brandon Pellett, executive director of Sycamore Glen at Quail Hollow, told the Chewelah Independent they worked with Washington state to change the direction of the project after recognizing the concerns from the community.

The unit will now be an assisted living facility.

“This unit will support people with dementia, Alzheimer’s and other diseases related to cognitive decline,” Pellett told The Independent.

Wells said a six-month moratorium would give the city more time to do research and understand how this could affect their community and Stevens County.

“We don’t think that we don’t need programs, but we want something that pushes abstinence and not just facilitating it and making it easy on them to stay on drugs,” Wells said.

Nielsen said he isn’t opposed to a six-month or yearlong moratorium so the city has time to get feedback about how to zone behavioral health facilities in the future, but he said there isn’t anything to worry about.

“There are no behavioral health facilities that are scheduled,” Nielsen said.

“And we’ve already got the conditional use permit so the moratorium doesn’t affect what we’re doing.”