Greater St. Cloud Public Safety Foundation Unveils East End Community Outpost, Adding Medical and Mental Health Services

(KNSI) – The Greater St. Cloud Public Safety Foundation launched its East End Community Outpost initiative at Tuesday’s Rotary meeting.

The new outpost will be located inside Salem Luthern Church in a part of the building that once housed the church’s education program.

Last year, the GSPSF conducted a door-to-door survey with the College of St. Benedict to determine what services east-side residents wanted and needed. Medical and mental health services were the overwhelming response. That provided an opportunity to team up with CentraCare and St. Ben’s nursing program. CSB nursing chair and family nurse practitioner Jennifer Peterson called it a great oppurtunity for students to get the clinical hours needed to graduate. “Our undergraduate students will be able to have public health experiences, and primary care experiences, while our graduate level students will have an opportunity to serve in some leadership roles with coordinating the clinic. Our nurse practitioner students will be actively seeing patients and helping manage that care.”

Around a dozen nursing students will be lending a hand at one time.

The SCPD’s Community Crisis Intervention Team will have an office to assist with mental health needs. Police Chief Jeff Oxton told KNSI News their role will grow with the East End CopHouse’s needs. “We’re starting small, and then we’re going to let it develop. But now, we’re just going to see how we can best fill that gap. So we are really excited. As we go, it will build and it will change, and we will, you know, learn from the successes and learn from the mistakes, and then we’ll just keep making it bigger and better.”

The facility will be open one day a week to start and will expand as needed.

Jake Judd/KNSI News

Wallok Construction’s Ernie Wollak has been a member of the GSPSF’s board for nine years and helped build the first location. He told KNSI News he is looking forward to bringing a second home to life. “We’re actually going to take about 3,000 feet and remodel. And it’s quite extensive. It’s about a six-month project or more and very exciting.”

The project will include work on load-bearing walls, turning the space into a medical room, a reception area, a conference room, and offices for police upstairs. Crews hope to start on September 15th or 20th, with construction lasting about six months. The work will cost upwards of $500,000.

It will be the second CopHouse in the city. The original facility opened on the southside in August 2017.

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