County Opens New Community Mental Health Clinic

County Executive David Crowley speaking at opening of Access Clinic North. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County recently opened a new clinic for emergency mental health and substance abuse services in the Isaac Coggs Heritage Health Center, 8200 W. Silver Spring Dr.

The clinic is called Access Clinic North, and the county’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) partnered with Milwaukee Health Services Inc., which operates the Coggs health center, to open it. DHHS now has three access clinics spread across the county, all of which have opened during the past two years. The other two are aptly called Access Clinic East, 210 W. Capitol Dr., and Access Clinic South, 1635 W. National Ave.

“These community-based services benefit people who are experiencing significant and potentially life-altering behavioral health crisis situations,” County executive David Crowley said at a grand opening event for the new clinic Friday. “They are connected to culturally competent behavioral health care within their own community and regardless of their ability to pay for it.”

Access clinics serve uninsured or underinsured residents in the surrounding community. The county’s access clinics never deny treatment because of an inability to pay.

Michelle Le Bourgeois, MHS chief operating officer, said her organization, which also operates a clinic at the MLK Heritage Health Center (2555 N. Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Dr.0, served 15,000 patients in 2022. The majority of patients, 86%, are Black; 60% are female; and 83% live below the federal poverty line, she said.

The opening of the new access clinic is the latest step in a long-running effort to redesign the county’s behavioral health system from a centralized, institutional approach to a decentralized community-based care model. In recent years, major projects included the shuttering of the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa, and the opening of the Mental Health Emergency Center at 1525 N. 12th St.

“For more than a decade, we have worked with our partners on redesigning behavioral health care systems to provide greater access to behavioral health care services, and quality care right in our neighborhoods, meeting people where they are.” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, DHHS Director. 

The director said the clinic will further the department’s “No Wrong Door” approach to providing services, which means that anyone who comes in contact with the agency at Access Clinic North will be connected to whatever service they need from the full suite of DHHS services. It is also an example of the county’s commitment to racial equity, LaGrant-McClain noted.

Dr. Kenneth Cole, outpatient director for county Behavioral Health Services, noted that the prevalence of mental health issues and crises makes access to treatment and services of critical importance. “It’s about access, physical access, which means a place where you can get really good health care” and “financial access, which means the lack of health insurance will not keep you from getting the help that you deserve” he said. “And an access, where cultural issues do not get in the way, where we work to build trust, make people feel safe.”