A major expansion at Bexar County’s Applewhite Recovery Center is expected to begin ramping up operations after county officials identified prescription medication access as the key bottleneck preventing more than 100 eligible inmates from transferring out of the Bexar County Jail and into treatment last month.
County commissioners on Tuesday approved up to $100,000 from the county’s opioid settlement funds as a last-resort safeguard for medication costs, formalizing part of a broader collaborative effort between University Health, the Bexar County Office of Criminal Justice, probation officials and the sheriff’s office aimed at accelerating transfers into treatment.
The Applewhite campus on the South Side serves as one of the county’s primary alternatives to incarceration for people struggling with both mental illness and substance use disorders. Last October, county officials opened a $28 million expansion to the facility, adding 130 beds to its dual-diagnosis residential program.
But during a broader April discussion on diversion and jail overcrowding, county officials revealed the newly expanded wing had largely remained unused because many individuals transferring from jail could not access necessary psychiatric medications once they arrived at the facility.
At the time, Jarvis Anderson, director of the Bexar County Community Supervision and Corrections Department, which oversees the center, said roughly 105 individuals eligible for placement in treatment were still sitting in the Bexar County Jail waiting for the issue to be resolved.
In the weeks following that discussion, county officials began working with University Health — the jail’s medical and behavioral health provider — to identify alternative ways to cover prescription costs and streamline the transfer process.
“We identified a barrier, which was prescription medication for probationers who were coming from the jail to enter programs at the Applewhite facility,” said Andrea Guerrero, director of Bexar County Public Health, during Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting. “So while we were talking, we were trying to figure out, OK, how do we solve this medication problem?”
Guerrero said she reached out to one of the county’s partners, University Health, which acts as the medical and behavioral health provider inside of the jail to work on possible solutions alongside Anderson.
University Health officials proposed using a combination of existing assistance programs, including CareLink, the hospital system’s financial assistance program for uninsured patients, the Dispensary of Hope pharmaceutical assistance network and the federal 340B drug pricing program, which allows safety-net hospitals to purchase medications at reduced costs, to provide prescriptions for many of the individuals entering treatment.
Guerrero added that estimates from the Office of Community Supervisions and Corrections Department indicate that most individuals at Applewhite would qualify for assistance under these programs.
The opioid settlement allocation approved Tuesday would act as a backup funding source if individuals do not qualify for the other programs, she said.
County officials emphasized the effort extends beyond simply filling beds and is part of the county’s broader diversion and deflection strategies designed to reduce pressure on the jail system while connecting people with treatment.
“This is a collaborative effort,” Antonio Salazar Rosas, with the county’s Office of Criminal Justice, told commissioners. “Probation, Office of Criminal Justice, preventative health. Everybody coming together to really expedite the transfer of these individuals.”
Anderson said five people were expected to begin transferring into the facility later this week, with additional transfers planned weekly as medication access and intake processes stabilize.
“I suspect by the end of June, you should see over half the people waiting for treatment in Bexar County Jail over at the Applewhite facility,” Anderson said. “That’s just going to open up the floodgates for everyone to go for treatment, minus those individuals that have legal holds or medical holds.”
Commissioners framed the effort as an example of how coordination between agencies can help relieve mounting pressure on the county jail system, which has increasingly relied on out-of-county housing contracts as inmate populations strain local capacity.
“This is a win for Bexar County and for collaboration,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody said. “I love to see this problem solving. It sounds like we’ve got a great plan. I support it. I hope we do more of this.”
