MIDLAND, TX (KWES) - Midland’s District Attorney Laura Nodolf has been in the works to tackle the top reasons for crime one by one, and right now a new transitional health care facility is at the top of her list.
“The purpose of the facility is to create a 25 bed facility where an individual can go for 30 to 90 days. They still have their criminal charges pending, they’re not just turned over they’re just not hugged and given a bottle of pills and said, ‘go get em.’ No the purpose is so that we can stabilize them so that they can get some job skills, some home skills, like how to live in an apartment, how to budget, how to do a lot of these things that you and I take advantage of every day,” said Nodolf.
Nodolf explained being in jail isn’t ideal for anyone going through a mental health crisis and the new facility would not only directly tackle the root problem of crime and reoccurring patients, but benefit Midland’s jail and tax payers’ wallets as well.
“A lot of people right now will often opt to not bond out of jail because they know that they can stay in there and get their medications and their food and that’s costing tax payers too. What we found is that it is cheaper than it is to run have someone incarcerated in Midland County Jail,” said Nodolf.
The architect and building for this facility has been selected and Nodolf says it couldn’t have been a better location being blocks away from the courthouse and other key services.
"The individual still needs to take care of their criminal case and so they have no excuse if they’re right across the street, they can walk over here, and it’s also centered around close enough to the Sheriff’s department, the police department and to the hospital,” said Nodolf.