Since its construction in 1966, Chatham Oaks, a residential care facility in Iowa City managed by AbbeHealth, has served residents with serious mental illness who need transitional treatment and support before moving into community-centered living.

Uncertainty now hangs over Johnson County’s only residential mental health facility.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors and Chatham Oaks staff are looking to tear the current building down and relocate to a smaller facility.

Chatham Oaks staff described the building as being too old and costly to maintain at the board’s Sept. 3 work session. Chatham Oaks staff have gone to the board in need of funding for numerous fixes such as roof work and a recent removal of asbestos.  

Dave Curtis, the facilities manager of Johnson County, pointed to a 2022 facility audit conducted by Johnson County to illustrate that Chatham Oaks would be better off relocating. 

In the audit, Chatham Oaks received a Facility Condition Index score of 90.8, exceeding the 60 score ceiling indicating a building would be more costly to maintain than demolish. 

“We’ve never really had the discussion of, ‘What are we going to do? What are the plans?’” Curtis said. “We keep going along till we have a sewer line that breaks down or a boiler that’s not going to work, or something major. What’s the next major thing that’s going to come along?”

Melissa Bell, marketing communications specialist of UnityPoint Health, which oversees AbbeHealth Services, said in an email to The Daily Iowan that UnityPoint doesn’t take the audit lightly. 

“The recent facility audit highlights the challenges of operating in an aging building, and we take those findings seriously,” she wrote. “It’s important to note an audit score over 60 does not mean the building is unusable but indicates the cost to renovate may exceed the building’s value.” 

Currently, Chatham Oaks operates under a 50-year lease agreement with Johnson County, which runs through 2061. 

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While the county owns the building, AbbeHealth Services is responsible for its operation and maintenance. The county has occasionally assisted with significant repairs, such as roof and chiller replacements. 

“We are grateful to the JoCo Board of Supervisors for their continued partnership and support in addressing critical infrastructure needs at the facility,” Bell wrote. “We are assessing the long-term needs of the facility and will provide a comprehensive report to the Board.”

Bell reiterated UnityPoint’s current focus remains on maintaining a safe and supportive home for Chatham Oaks residents. 

At the Sept. 3 work session, board member Rod Sullivan dove into the history of the facility. 

Sullivan said over the last 40 years, residential mental health care in the U.S. has moved away from the custodial model, simply housing and giving basic care to patients, to a treatment and transition model that prepares patients to return to their community. 

Instead of long-term stays, patients were given treatment and connections to resources in their community while only staying for around six months. 

“When they built [Chatham Oaks], they built it for a lot of people,” Sullivan said. “Probably 20 years after the building was constructed, people started to move away from that kind of huge congregate way of providing services. So the building became kind of a dinosaur early on.”

Sullivan said Chatham Oaks was built in 1966 to house 104 people. The facility now only takes care of 16 at a time due to shorter stays. 

Chatham Oaks is now looking to downsize. Diane Brecht, the executive director of nursing at AbbeHealth, said finding a new building to do so could prove to be more difficult than imagined at the Sept. 3 work session. 

“You could probably find a nursing home and repurpose it. You could probably find another building. But again, are we going to have the same issues that we have with Chatham, with what would it cost to renovate an older building?”

The board expects a six month report of the facility in March to continue to monitor the building’s condition while planning a possible relocation. In the meantime, the board and AbbeHealth look to keep the current building running as safely as possible. 

“We have a huge crisis in terms of the number of beds right now, not just in Johnson County, but statewide,” Sullivan said. “[Chatham Oaks] beds in particular are important because they’re the only off-site piece of our guidelink access center services.”