County turns to urgent care centers, rather than jails or ERs, to treat the mentally ill in crisis

At the psychiatric urgent care center in Boyle Heights, a young woman wearing a nightgown knelt in a corner, praying in Spanish. A repeat visitor, the woman had been picked up by police the day before after she left the board and care facility where she lives and was found standing in the street wearing only a bra. When asked how she had ended up at the urgent care center, the woman smiled shyly. "I forgot," she said. In the center's lobby, Jennifer Rhaburn, 51, was waiting for her 26-year-old son. She had driven him to the center early that morning to get a prescription for medication to treat his psychosis.