Ramsey County aims to open small, secure youth treatment homes

It’s a relatively small group of kids — 50, maybe 60 in Ramsey County. But finding a way to bend those teenagers with the highest needs from a dangerous path, one often marked by crime and addiction, toward stability has proven elusive.

So the county is trying something new.

Ramsey County asked organizations to apply by Friday to operate secure youth treatment homes. The one or two small homes will be the first of their kind in the state, county leaders said, and will focus on young people with intensive mental health needs who might otherwise be in the county’s juvenile detention center — or in faraway facilities.

“If it isn’t known by now, you’d have to have been living under a rock: that we are in a crisis,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said. “We need the most innovative solutions to figure out how do we ... provide effective interventions so that this type of behavior stops, the bad behavior that affects all of us. But then more importantly, help these individuals and families.”

For more than a century, kids who might now end up in the treatment homes were sent to the Boys Totem Town residential facility in St. Paul. It once held more than 100 kids. Ramsey County closed the facility in 2019, as the number of youth placed there dropped and officials increasingly aimed to treat kids at home or in their community.

A year or two later, community leaders gathered amid rising violent crime and car thefts, many committed by young people, during the early years of the pandemic. The group of county officials didn’t want to go back to the Totem Town model, Choi said. They decided smaller-scale, intensive residential therapeutic homes were the solution.

Counties across the state are struggling as Minnesota’s youth treatment facilities try to accommodate the increased demand from kids with complex behavioral and mental health challenges.

Officials who work with youth in Ramsey and Hennepin counties say they often cannot find Minnesota providers willing to accept their kids. The counties are trying different ways to close the service gap as they push the state to address the need.

Hennepin County recently announced it would fast-track the creation of a youth behavioral health crisis stabilization center. County officials said the facility would open this summer and house 10 to 15 kids for a month or two.

Ramsey County’s homes would be smaller and offer a longer-term stay.

In 2023, the state gave Ramsey County $5 million to operate the treatment homes and another $5 million to provide support services for families. After a slow start to the project — which officials said was due in part to turnover in county leadership — the county asked providers to apply by Friday to run the “healing and treatment homes” that will each house up to six kids.

The county hopes to open the homes this summer. Unlike many residential treatment programs and group homes around the state, county officials want them to be secure so kids cannot run away.

Exactly what security would look like remains to be seen, and state licensing for the unusual homes could be complicated. Choi said he hopes Gov. Tim Walz’s administration will work with the county on licensing to run the locked facilities.

The homes for youth 14 to 18 years old are supposed to operate under three guiding principles:

The initial vision was for about five homes, each with roughly half a dozen kids, Sheriff Bob Fletcher said. That’s been scaled back to one or two homes to start. The homes could have different specialties, such as addiction treatment, Fletcher said, and varying levels of security.

The kids they are trying to serve are often surviving in unlivable conditions, law enforcement officials said.

“Doors were broken, windows busted out, no food in the house. Trash. No clean clothes,” said Sgt. Thomas Segelstrom with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. “They’re going to break into cars, they’re gonna go get the clothes, they’re gonna go get the food they need. ... It’s basic needs. No kid can thrive in any of these conditions.”

There are significant racial disparities among youth who are arrested and placed in detention or removed from their homes. The highest disparities are among Black and American Indian youth, according to county documents detailing the project, which predict Black boys will make up the majority of youth placed in the facility.

The provider selected to run the homes should have a culturally responsive approach to caring for the kids, the request for proposals states.

The Minneapolis-based nonprofit The Link is among the applicants seeking to operate a home. CEO Beth Holger said they have heard horror stories about Boys Totem Town and are excited about the new plan to look at each young person’s needs individually and address the root causes leading them to commit crimes.

“They have a lot of amazing dreams and skills and talents,” Holger said. “We want to support those and their healing so they don’t have to engage in juvenile crime and can really accomplish the dreams they have for themselves.”

Judges will determine whether youth should go to the homes, and kids will be able to stay there for up to 18 months, according to county documents. Meanwhile, the county plans to offer their families support services so young people return to a stable environment.

Ramsey County will open the homes first and then get organizations in place to do the family support work, County Manager Ling Becker said.

“The aftercare, of course, is a critical piece of it. ... Is the home still a mess, you know? And what’s the situation there?” Fletcher said. “I’ve seen tremendous success stories in juvenile justice programs. The problem is transitioning back when you’re done.”

The homes will focus on Ramsey County kids to start, with the goal of keeping them close to their families and community. But officials said they are also working with other counties to push for broader changes.

Choi said they need to look at ways to bolster payments to the providers who will run the treatment homes because it will be hard work with high staff-to-child ratios. Treatment providers across the state have been asking Minnesota to increase reimbursement rates for mental health and addiction services, saying low rates have contributed to facility closures in recent years.

“This is just a pilot project. It is not the entire solution,” Community Corrections Director Monica Long said. “There is a county issue, but there’s also a state issue with appropriate beds for these youth.”