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After months of renovation, Newport-based Front Porch will open its overnight beds on Wednesday. Photo by Olivia Gieger\/VTDigger<\/p>\nAfter months of renovation, Newport-based Front Porch will open its overnight beds on Wednesday. Photo by Olivia Gieger\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
The next phase in a yearslong effort to expand access to emergency mental health care in the Northeast Kingdom begins Wednesday: The Newport-based mental health urgent care Front Porch plans to open four overnight beds after months of construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several mental health agencies across the state staff 24\/7 crisis phone lines<\/a> and offer daytime walk-in urgent care options. But when the Lakemont Road facility opened in Newport City in June 2024, Front Porch became the state\u2019s first \u2014 and only \u2014 around-the-clock walk-in mental health urgent care program.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, until this week, people who arrived at Front Porch for help could only stay for 23 hours and 59 minutes because the facility was not set up nor licensed as an overnight option. With the new beds, people can come and go for up to 10 days \u2014 no hospital admission or doctor\u2019s referral required.\u00a0<\/p>\n The space is meant to be a landing place for people navigating a mental health crisis, large or small, without needing to rely on a hospital\u2019s emergency room or 911.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can come here. You can stay here, in your community,\u201d said Kelsey Stavseth, the executive director of Northeast Kingdom Human Services, the organization that runs Front Porch. \u201cIt\u2019s about stabilizing in your community, so you don\u2019t need to leave. You don\u2019t have to go inpatient. It\u2019s really tailor made for folks who are struggling with mental health needs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For the staff at the Vermont Department of Mental Health or the designated private nonprofit organizations<\/a> the state works with \u2014 including Northeast Kingdom Human Services \u2014 the phrase \u201ccontinuum of care\u201d has become a mantra. The oft-echoed guiding principle is to create \u201csomeone to call, someone who can come to you, and somewhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Front Porch fits into that continuum alongside the 988 suicide text and call lifeline and the state\u2019s mobile crisis response, a coordinated county-by-county response effort<\/a> that provides a team of clinical professionals to meet patients wherever they may need assistance with mental health or substance use crises.\u00a0<\/p>\n To get the Front Porch off the ground, Northeast Kingdom Human Services benefited from state grant funding, awarded after the Covid-19 pandemic drove steep demand for increased inpatient psychiatric services<\/a> as well as more community-based mental health urgent care.\u00a0<\/p>\n The costs of acquiring the land and originally building the space came to $1.3 million, which Erica Perkins, the organization\u2019s director of communications, confirmed. The renovations alone cost $1.9 million \u2014 all of it was covered by $2 million in state funding, plus a million dollar contribution from Northeast Kingdom Human Services\u2019 reserves, Perkins said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prior to Front Porch opening last year, people in the Newport area had nowhere else to look for crisis support<\/a> than over-burdened hospital emergency departments. Across the state, more than $3 million has been awarded since 2023 to programs that offer an alternative to the emergency department, including Front Porch. Since then, Front Porch has also received allocations from the state\u2019s General Fund.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition to Front Porch, the state has seven other emergency department alternatives. Adults can access this care through Interlude, run by Counseling Service of Addison County in Middlebury; the Access Hub in Montpelier; and the Howard Center\u2019s Mental Health Urgent Care in Burlington. The Burlington Police Department also has run a Crisis Assessment, Response, and Engagement Services team, though that program will end in December<\/a>. For children, services reside at the Bennington-based Psychiatric Urgent Care for Kids, Morristown\u2019s Emergent Psychiatric Intervention for Children and the Youth Stabilization Program in Brattleboro.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the Northeast Kingdom, this entire continuum has yielded especially positive results, according to Stavseth. After leaving Front Porch, 96% of people return to the community, he said. Including outcomes for people who seek help through the crisis line and mobile support team, that number is between 85% and 90%.<\/p>\n Stavseth said he hopes that extending the amount of time people are able to stay will help them build more resilience to tackle mental health challenges beyond Front Porch\u2019s walls. It is important, he added, that people will be able to do this locally. They can stay at Front Porch overnight and still commute to work, without needing to sacrifice a paycheck for the stability Front Porch provides.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHaving a professional place to go is good, but what\u2019s really going to create the resilience is saying, \u2018Do you have a job? Do you have family or natural supports in healthy relationships? Do you feel secure in your housing? How can we enhance and support the things we know build healthy life?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u2018Just show up\u2019<\/p>\n The four bedrooms in the Front Porch are light-filled and cozy. They look more like guest bedrooms than clinical spaces, with pine furniture, big windows and canvas photos of the natural world lining the walls.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re always going to need the hospital, but it\u2019s not always appropriate for people to be in there. It\u2019s not really therapeutically appropriate if you\u2019re going to be there for a long period of time. And so we really want to make it home-like,\u201d Stavseth said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Above each bedroom\u2019s door sits a window so people can see if the lights are on in the communal space that each room opens onto. It is supposed to help people gauge whether they want to join people outside of their room, without sacrificing the privacy of a windowless door. When VTDigger visited the space in mid-September, the facility centered around an open kitchen with a collection of tables and chairs and a big living room with vaulted ceilings lined with more pine beams.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/front-porch-center-7-1200x1600.jpeg\")
Josh Burke, the director of emergency services at Northeast Kingdom Human Services, shows off the communal spaces in a still-under-construction Front Porch during a September visit. Photo by Olivia Gieger\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
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The space aims to incorporate lots of natural light and \u2018biophilic design\u2019 which has been shown to lower stress and boost physical health. Photo by Olivia Gieger\/VTDigger<\/p>\n