DES MOINES, Iowa — The Polk County Life Services Center is planned to open on November 18th. The center will serve two purposes: Polk County’s first-ever sobering center, and a behavioral health urgent care and crisis observation center.

The non-profit St. Vincent de Paul will run the sobering center and partner with Broadlawns Medical Center staff for the behavioral health urgent care and Crisis Observation Center.

St. Vincent de Paul will provide community navigators who are staff-trained to help connect people with the resources they need to deal with substance abuse and other issues.

Steve Havermann, the CEO of St. Vincent de Paul in Des Moines, said the community navigators will be a game changer for the sobering center.

“That’s really part of what is innovative about this is the community navigators that St. Vincent de Paul will be offering, will be referring people to, will be doing an intake assessment, of course, around alcohol use, but also around what’s called the life skills progression. So how are folks doing on basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, health care, relationships with families, transportation? And so we can hopefully start working with these individuals to knock down barriers,” Havermann said.

To learn more about the Polk County Life Services Center, visit the Polk County website.