Camarillo State Mental Hospital

Camarillo State Mental Hospital, also known as Camarillo State Hospital, was a psychiatric hospital for both developmentally disabled and mentally ill patients in Camarillo, California. The hospital closed in 1997. The site has been redeveloped as the California State University, Channel Islands. The University has retained the distinctive Mission Revival Style architecture, and the bell tower in the South quad has been adopted as the symbol of the university.

History

In 1932, the State of California purchased 1,760 acres (7.1 km²) of the Lewis ranch, located three miles south of the city of Camarillo, and established the Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Camarillo State Hospital was in use from 1936 to 1997. During the 1950s and 1960s, especially, the hospital was at the forefront of treating illnesses previously thought to be untreatable, for instance, developing drug and therapy procedures for schizophrenia. Programs initiated at Camarillo helped patients formerly relegated to institutions to leave the hospital and move to less restrictive group homes or become (at least nearly) independent. The hospital continued to be a leader in the research of drugs and therapies in subsequent years. They also had one of the first units of any hospital to deal with autism.

In 1929, the California legislature initially appropriated $1,000,000 for the purchase of land and buildings to be utilized for a state hospital. Three years later, 1500 acres of the 8600 acre Lewis Ranch, owned by agriculturists Joseph P. Lewis and Adolfo Camarillo, located within the City of Camarillo, County of Ventura was acquired for $415,000.

Architectural plans for the new hospital were rushed to state architect, George McDougall, to begin the process to accommodate the initial 3000 patients for the first unit. The hospital was expected to cover 200 acres with supply wards, homes for the superintendent and officials, dormitories for employees and patients, commissaries, and storerooms. It was anticipated that the completed hospital would house 7000 patients and over 700 staff.

The first artist rendition of the hospital appeared in The Camarillo News on November 25, 1932. Fifty male patients arrived in Camarillo in March of 1933, and were initially housed in the farm home on the Lewis Ranch. That number grew to over 100, in June of 1934. A call for construction bids came from the State in May of 1933 and during that same month, Camarillo State Hospital or “CAM” as it was named affectionately by its employees, received its official name. Camarillo State Hospital officially joined six other state institutions, with 16,000 patients between them, under the direction of Dr. J.M. Toner.

Units 1 and 5 of the initial section of the hospital were scheduled for the first construction. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on August 15, 1933, with Josephine Lewis, Mr. and Mrs. Adolfo Camarillo, Governor Rolph, and Dr. Toner in attendance. The new hospital project was a direct result of an agreement between the Works Public Administration (the WPA) and the State of California. The total amount of the construction cost was approximately $10,000,000 and at completion, was the largest mental hospital in the world.

In April of 1936, Thomas W. Haggerty, physician, surgeon, and psychiatrist was hired as the new Superintendent for the hospital. However, the hospital didn’t officially open for the mentally disabled until October of that year. The official opening brought Governor Frank Merriam, who made the dedicatory address; Adolfo Camarillo; Joseph McGrath; Ed Rains; Roy Pinkerton; and other local celebrities.

The first official hospital patients were adult men, who were housed in the Bell Tower (South Complex). In 1937, 300 women patients were transferred to Camarillo from other state hospitals. In fact, there were so many patient transfers from other overcrowded state hospitals, that a North Complex was initiated in 1939. The South Complex and the North Complex were then divided into male and female wards.

In 1947, Camarillo State Hospital opened a ward for the admission of mentally disabled children. When this ward expanded, a Children’s Treatment Center was constructed and occupied in January, 1955. The facility grew with a new Receiving and Treatment Center and an Administration Building in 1949. Staff population at this time was around 1518. In 1957, the patient population reached its peak, exceeding 7,000, the largest population that the hospital would see in its 60 years of existence.

Prior to 1959, adolescent males and females were housed with mentally disabled adults. In 1959, the adolescent females (including autistic patients) were separated from their adult counterparts. By 1968, the Adolescent Division was separated from the Children’s Division and organized into four treatment units and a special school. In 1970, the units became co-educational.

The hospital began its double duty in 1967, when its role as a mental hospital for illnesses such as schizophrenia or manic depression, was widened to include a center for clients with developmental disabilities, such as organic brain disease, autism, and other birth defects that limit the ability to learn.

In 1969, the Lanterman Petris Short Act became effective, which eliminated the previous indefinite commitments of persons found by a court to be mentally disabled. The new law required an automatic judicial review of every decision to hospitalize a person involuntarily beyond a very limited time. The law also required annual reconsideration of involuntary treatment. State agencies encouraged outside placement of individuals under the Penal Code, which in turn, led levels of care or services at state hospitals to decrease, while costs of care increased.

In 1971, the CAM treatment staff was reorganized under a program management concept, which enabled the establishment of treatment programs for persons with similar needs. Each treatment program was headed by a program director/mental health professional. Later, in 1976, the reorganization of the hospital led to the establishment of an Executive Director, a Clinical Director, Medical Director, and Administration Services Director for the hospital. Discoveries regarding chemical barriers in the brain created a new generation of drugs, which enabled a mentally disabled person to live a normal life. In 1978, the Legislature established the Department of Developmental Services (DDS) to oversee CAM functions. The DDS remains the administrator of various mental health facilities today.

In 1983, an innovative approach to treatment for the mentally disabled was initiated at CAM. Activity centers allowed adult patients to be placed in a day treatment location, away from the living units. Patients were allowed to leave their living units at various times of the day and evening to attend therapy groups, activity groups, and educational programs. These programs were refined to include the latest biopsychosocial treatment approaches developed by U.C.L.A. at the Camarillo State Hospital Research Center. The scheduling of patients into groups, based on their needs and strengths, allowed for the most individualized treatment available in the history of the facility.

In 1985, a new vision and role for the hospital was imagined: “Enhancing Independence Through Innovation”. CAM evolved from a one-time locked down, lifetime institution for the severely mentally ill into a facility which provided innovative and successful treatment modalities for drug and alcohol abusers, as well as programs that stabilized the mentally and developmentally disabled and successfully returned them to society.

For many years, the hospital remained independent and autonomous from the outside world, with its own gardens, ice house, dairy, butcher, fire and police departments, hospital, beauty parlors, petting zoo, clothing store, swimming pool, and bowling alley. It even housed staff on its grounds. With its accreditation ratings consistently high in the 1980s and 1990s, the hospital seemed destined to last forever.

Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. The closure of CAM is a complicated issue and not easily answered. Ultimately, it was the end result of economic strain and a changing outlook on mental health. On May 17, 1996, Governor Pete Wilson empowered a special task force to research reasons for and against the closure of the Camarillo State Hospital and Developmental Center. The task force cited that the facility, which housed as many as 7,266 patients in 1954, had only 871 clients in 1996. Its per capita costs had risen to nearly $114,000, second highest in the state mental health system. These factors prompted the initial closing of one-quarter of the facility’s 64 units and later, on June 30, 1996, CAM officially and permanently closed its doors to the public.

Controversy

Camarillo was criticized for abuses, for instance, what some reviews said was excessive use of restraints and poor supervision of patients. Critics said that it "warehoused" rather than treated the mentally ill; at other times, it was criticized for releasing people who needed more supervision. Changing community ethics called for releasing more people and treating them in community-based group homes; as a result, the number of patients at Camarillo dropped from 7,000 in the 1960s to 900 in 1996. But many cities have had rises in the homeless populations, often people who should be in group homes, but who do not have the discipline to stay there or to maintain needed medication treatment for stabilization of conditions.

Closing

Due to its low patient numbers and the rising costs per patient, the Republican Pete Wilson, governor of California at the time, announced in January 1996 plans to close down the hospital in July 1997. Various members of the community, family members of patients, and employees of Camarillo made several last-ditch efforts to keep the hospital open, arguing in part that the patients are already used to Camarillo and questioned where they would go. Some tried to get mentally ill criminals placed in Camarillo in an effort to save it, a proposal that had come up several times before, but again community members were concerned of the risk of criminals escaping into the community. Pete Wilson ended up standing his ground and the hospital closed down in late June 1997, with the patients and research facilities moved to other locations.

Site turned into California State University, Channel Islands

Originally the state intended to turn Camarillo into a prison, but community opposition in part and interest from the Cal State Universities led to its conversion into a university- California State University, Channel Islands (CSUCI). CSUCI had its first classes in fall 2002, four years ahead of the original schedule. Some of the buildings of Camarillo have been preserved and revitalized, including many of the original 1930's mission-style buildings, but quite a few appear in various states of disrepair. The university is Ventura County's first public university and is quickly becoming a destination university. It had 2,300 students in 2006, but is expected to grow to 15,000 by 2025.

Camarillo State Hospital in popular culture

Due to the hospital's proximity to the media center of Los Angeles, it has been referred to in movies, television, and music. Some famous persons suffering from mental illnesses, tuberculosis, or detoxing from drugs or alcohol stayed there to recover in Ventura County's mild climate. Jazzman Charlie Parker's "Relaxin' at Camarillo", written while he was detoxifying after a heroin addiction, is a tribute to the facility. The song "Camarillo" by punk outfit Fear also refers to the hospital. The band Ambrosia released a song called "Ready for Camarillo" on their 1978 Life Beyond L.A. album. "Camarillo Brillo" by Frank Zappa is also a reference to the institution.

Much of the 1948 film The Snake Pit, starring Olivia de Havilland, was filmed here.
At 13 years old, the late Steven Jesse Bernstein, a spoken word poet, was a patient at Camarillo.
The opening scene from the Wes Anderson film Bottle Rocket was filmed at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital.
'N Sync's mental hospital-set video for "I Drive Myself Crazy" was filmed at Camarillo.
After it closed, Camarillo was a popular destination for ghost hunters alleging that the hospital is haunted.
During the dénouement of some television episodes of the Dragnet series, there were references to captured criminals being sentenced to Camarillo State Hospital.
Scenes from The Ring and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were filmed at and around the hospital's grounds.
Season 4 of the TV show The Biggest Loser was filmed in 2007 when the site was CSU Channel Islands.
In the TV Show The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon and Penny were in the middle of an improvisational acting lesson. Penny is pretending to be on the phone working at a shoe store, and Sheldon comes in asking for frozen yogurt. Sheldon mentions Carmarillo State Mental Hospital as the sign he would see in response to Penny thinking she owns a store which sells both shoes and frozen yogurt.

External links

Commitment Criteria: The Lives of 23 Women Who Were Committed to Camarillo State Hospital Historical Follow 23 women's paths into Camarillo State Mental Hospital in California. (Camarillo Hospital was open from 1936-1997 and in its heyday, housed 7,000 patients at a time.) Due to its proximity to Los Angeles, Camarillo Hospital had an abnormal amount of Hollywood connections. Life stories in this book range from the criminally insane to women who were committed due to controlling husbands. In this first volume, 23 women's stories are told, including those of Marilyn Monroe's mother, Comedian Bob "Bazooka" Burns' daughter, Actress Gia Scala (who starred in movies with Glenn Ford, Gregory Peck and more), Edward G. Robinson's daughter-in-law, Silent film actress Catherine Smith, Actress and race horse stable owner Paula Stanway Thorpe, One of the first women run for CA governor Hazel Younger, Ex-wife of Diamond Walnut Growers Inc.'s founder, and the 4th woman gassed to death in CA's then 111 year history of the death sentence by gas chamber. These stories range from 1942-1986.
Camarillo State Hospital Historical Site Current photos and historical information about Camarillo State Mental Hospital
Camarillo State Hospital Archive Camarillo State Archives, run by CA State Univ. at Channel Islands, the institution currently on site
Camarillo State Hospital Courtyard an informational website intended for former employees and the general public