“Today is a day of hope.”
Ed Bedford said those words as he fought back tears while thinking of his late wife and former Orange County Commissioner Jamezetta Bedford on Thursday morning. Dozens of people, including the late Bedford’s colleagues and project partners, listened as her husband shared some remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony of the crisis diversion facility named in her honor.
Jamezetta Bedford died this summer, just days before Orange County’s governing body passed the final vote to fund the $29 million facility and property off Hillsborough’s Waterstone Drive. The center’s aim is to create a government-run space for helping people experiencing behavioral health emergencies and diverting them from either the criminal justice system or local hospitals’ emergency departments.
Every speaker before and after Ed Bedford praised the advocacy and effort spent by Jamezetta Bedford to see the project come to fruition. Her widower said it embodies the Bedford family’s dedication to standing beside those individuals, which was shaped by Jamezetta.
“When the doors open,” Ed Bedford said, “I hope people find more than a building and more than a service. I hope people find a place where they can be treated with dignity, and where they’re met with such compassion and care, where they and their families can begin to find a way forward. I hope this center will remind people that asking for help is a sign of courage.”
Ed Bedford speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Center on Thursday, October 22, 2026. (Photo via Kristin Prelipp/Orange County Government.)
An exterior rendering of the future Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Center in Hillsborough. (Photo via the Orange County government/CPL.)
The Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Center will be a 21,146 square-foot space blending tailored care with a therapeutic atmosphere. In addition to the center’s walk-in urgent care unit — offering 12 adults beds, four beds for children and 24/7 operations — it will feature a 16-bed crisis unit to serve patients 18+ who need longer stabilization. Located just half a mile away from UNC Health’s Hillsborough hospital, the county-run facility will be able to send patients who need additional care or receive patients for whom the center is a better treatment option.
One of the original project’s sub-committee members alongside Bedford was Tony Marimpietri, a retired researcher who volunteered his time to the project after attending a crisis diversion workshop in 2019 and sharing suggestions to the county staff based on his experience working with NAMI-Orange County. Across seven years, 60 subcommittee meetings, and dozens of other meetings with community stakeholders, Marimpietri helped guide the process of envisioning and enacting the facility. He credited the subcommittee’s medical, emergency response and psychiatry professionals on Thursday for their expertise — but they credited him for the project management skills and guidance needed to navigate the facility’s planning stages.
“We’re not done,” Marimpietri said to punctuate his comments to the crowd. “Now we get ready for the next phase of work: to ensure the Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Center delivers on its promise to this community.”
How will that promise change the current responses to behavior health emergencies? The idea is by having a designated place for healthcare professionals to treat people enduring mental health crises or challenges — compared to them being mixed in with other emergencies — will lead to improved outcomes. The facility will have spaces for patients to have overnight stays, a resource library for their families, and a secure courtyard to allow people for moments outside of the medical setting. Integrated discharge services will mean the patients are not simply sent home after their stay, but a coordinated response among the local social safety net will be there to help them recover.
Members of the subcommittee of the Orange County Behavioral Health Task Force who advised and shaped the crisis diversion center project. (Photo via Kristin Prelipp/Orange County Government.)
Both UNC Health Director of Psychiatric Services Barbara-Ann Bybel and Orange County Emergency Services Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Grover spoke to how these amenities and dedicated staff will help address gaps in how mental health and substance abuse is treated by the healthcare system.
“The Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Facility,” Grover said, “represents the opportunity to present the right resources, in the right place at the right time. For EMS, it creates the potential for a meaningful alternative destination for appropriate patients. For our emergency departments, it can help ensure the patients receive care in the setting best equipped their needs. For law enforcement, it offers an alternative to the criminal justice system when what an individual truly needs is treatment and support. And most importantly, for patients and their families, it offers another pathway toward recovery, stability and dignity.”
“As a healthcare provider, we want to provide the care — and not the criminalization, not the stigma,” said Bybel. “We know that a crisis can be very overwhelming, not just for the individuals, but for their families, for first responders, for law enforcement. It can be very overwhelming for the healthcare professionals and we want to work together to support people better. So, facilities like this are just absolutely essential to building a more responsive, accessible and compassionate system of care.”
From the law enforcement side, Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said there is no law or rule that dictated involuntary commitments had to be carried out by sheriff’s deputies — and the duty simply fell to his office years ago. He said he believes transport by law enforcement is “absolutely not” the right response to a health crisis and that the introduction of the diversion facility will make “a huge difference” in providing conscientious aid to people who have not broken the law.
“A name on a building can honor [someone],” Blackwood said, recognizing Bedford. “But the name attached to this place should be a reminder. It should remind us of a life devoted to serving others. It should remind us a meaningful change begins when someone is willing to say, ‘We can do better.’ And it should remind us that a measure of a community is not simply how we celebrate our successes, but how we care for our neighbors when they’re struggling. Jamezetta Bedford understood the importance of this mission.”
Similarly, Orange County Board of Commissioners Chair Jean Hamilton added that the center highlights “Orange County’s values,” which Bedford often reflected in her public service and life. She said it is based in recognizing the humanity in every community member and offering treatment, resources and hope to move toward recovery.
“Thank you all for being part of this milestone, for helping us honor Jamezetta Bedford is such a lasting way,” Hamilton said to close her speech. “I look forward to the day when we gather here again to open the doors and welcome the people this center is built to serve.”
Construction on the Jamezetta Bedford Crisis Care Center aims to be finished in the winter of 2027, according to the county government, with the goal of staff and patients occupying the facility in the spring of 2028.
Featured photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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