AUGUSTA — The court master overseeing the Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta has suggested reopening group homes on state grounds to relieve a space crunch.

Daniel Wathen, a former Maine Supreme Judicial Court chief justice, told a legislative committee Tuesday that even though not every bed is occupied, some of the 53 patients at the state-run hospital are there under court order and are so acutely ill they require higher ratios of staff to patients.

The Kennebec Journal reports that he says the state should reopen two group homes to house 10 people who’ve been given, or anticipate receiving, permission to leave the hospital and transition to a group home.

Wathen says that would make room for 12 people under court order to be held at Riverview, but are instead being held in jails.