A new health clinic in Salinas meets clients in the community where they live.

In a world where access to much-needed services feels like it’s shrinking, it was good to see it opening up for an entire neighborhood when it comes to mental health services. Pam Marino here, with a report on the County of Monterey’s newest ACCESS Outpatient Clinic in Salinas.

Last Thursday, June 12, around 50 people were gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the clinic, located at 30 S. Pearl St. Afterward we were able to tour the facility, which includes both a community room and unique, soundproof work pods, spaces where people in need of mental health and substance abuse referrals and services can meet privately with social workers.

One of the key features of the clinic is its location, in the heart of the Alisal neighborhood, where residents live, shop and get other important services. It’s directly across from the county’s Women, Infants and Children Program, or WIC, which provides food, nutritional information and referrals to health care. It’s about a half-mile from the county’s Alisal Integrated Health Center, opened last year.

Marisa Hernandez, a district representative of state Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, told the audience that it was a “full circle moment” for her, having grown up in Salinas, raised by farmworker parents.

“I remember coming with my mom to the WIC center and then afterwards going into the [Salinas Indoor] Swapmeet center,” she said. (The Swapmeet is right next door.) She praised county leaders for making such crucial services conveniently available to residents.

Supervisor Luis Alejo described Alisal as a vibrant, busy, hardworking community and called it a “powerful statement, when our Health Department and Behavioral Health Bureau are taking services to where the need is greatest and to where the people live and reside.”

The South Pearl Street ACCESS Center was first planned well before the pandemic, but “everything kind of got flipped on its head,” said Melanie Rhodes, director of the county’s Behavioral Health Bureau. About a year and a half ago the bureau began working in earnest toward getting the center open, joining four other similar centers in Salinas by Natividad, Marina, Soledad and King City.

Rhodes reported that last fiscal year, Behavioral Health served more than 13,000 people of all ages—about half residing in Salinas. Over 6,000 people were connected to services through the regional ACCESS clinics, with approximately half of those being new clients. She said there had been a 148-percent increase in clients over the past 10 years. 

“There is more need than ever and us having access points and clinics that are warm and welcoming to invite people in where they are living their lives is important,” Rhodes said. “This clinic stands as a symbol of progress and commitment to improving how we connect to our community, to how we connect them to essential mental health and substance abuse services, because we know that timely access to care can make all the difference in an individual and family’s life.”