Construction kicked off this week on phase one of a new San Joaquin County behavioral health care facility in French Camp, known as the BeWell Campus.

County officials and project executives broke ground Wednesday on the 18.6-acre site of the BeWell Campus near San Joaquin General Hospital after two years of planning. The project aims to provide a host of behavioral health services in one location, giving patients a guided transition through the various stages of recovery and outpatient support.

BeWell will integrate mental health and substance abuse treatment, outpatient care, residential treatment and crisis stabilization, officials say, describing it as the largest mental health investment in San Joaquin County’s history.

The care facility will consist of two campuses to be completed in two phases. This first phase will focus on the facility’s South Campus, which will house four buildings offering community and outpatient services, an urgent care and two residential treatment program buildings, according to the county. The facility’s residential programs will add 132 beds and 241 treatment slots in the county.  

The campus also includes plans for youth and family support and other long-term treatment, according to a county press release.

Phase one of the $261 million project was funded in part through a federal behavioral health infrastructure grant totaling $137 million. Other financial contributors included state officials, funds from San Joaquin County health programs and other county partners.

As Medi-Cal benefits become difficult to administer to unhoused residents and immigrants lacking permanent legal status, county executives acknowledged concerns of how the large facility will receive payment for providing them care.

Genevieve Valentine, director of San Joaquin County Health Care Services, said a feasibility study for clinical services that the campus will provide shows an opportunity to accumulate additional revenue — because they will not be turning people away.

“We’ll continue doing our outreach efforts and continue doing prevention efforts, and we’re going to look at it from a systematic perspective,” Valentine said. “We’re going to have our health clinics, our public health, and our behavioral health programs here, so that way we’re going to be a welcoming environment regardless of status or payment source.” 

“If that means that we have to work a little bit harder and get additional grants and so forth, we’re going to do that,” she added.

San Joaquin County supervisors also emphasized the positive impact they expect the BeWell Campus will have on the community and surrounding hospitals in the region, including those who may not directly need the facility’s care services.

Paul Canepa, county supervisor for District 2 and chairperson of the SJ County Board of Supervisors, said that the “ripple effect from the campus would be profound” on the community, noting that the area will have access to updated water and plumbing systems.

“All of this area is on well and septic, so they’re bringing sewer and water to this location,” Canepa said of the project’s future infrastructure needs. “It’s a huge boom for the community, because it helps deal with wells and contamination issues. Now, residents can hook up to water and sewerage.”

Sonny Dhaliwal, District 3 representative and Board of Supervisors vice chair, said the BeWell Campus will provide patients suffering from a mental health crisis with specialized treatment rather than being directed to an emergency room.

“There are people who have not been getting the help that they needed for decades, since the state started closing the mental illness facilities,” Dhaliwal said, adding that this new facility will provide relief to other area hospitals by directing patients those who can best provide them with the care they need. “What happens sometimes when everybody goes to a single hospital? The system gets overwhelmed and there’s a long wait.”

Construction on phase one of the BeWell Campus, which is scheduled to officially begin in November, is expected to be completed by April 2028; however, officials say at least one of the facility’s buildings will be open to the public by July 2027. It will house a crisis stabilization unit, sobering center, behavioral health urgent care, and psychiatric health facility.

As phase one breaks ground, the county is applying for a second round of federal grant funding  next month for the project’s second phase, which will be known as the North Campus, which county officials say is expected to cost an additional $120 million. The North Campus will offer long-term transitional housing and peer-staffed mental health programs.

“Our goal is to actually be able to have peers support those that are in their housing journey once they’ve gone through treatment, and then we’ll have transitional housing on this campus,” Valentine said. “So those that are struggling with finding a place to live after treatment will have the opportunity to live here as we help them build up their economic growth in order to be able to integrate right back into the community.”

Those who need the transitional can stay at the facility from 30 days up to 18 months, Valentine said, depending upon the level of housing being provided.

“We don’t want them just to be healthy from a behavioral health perspective,” Valentine said. “We want them to be economically healthy in order to be able to make changes in their life at large.”