DHS: A reprieve for the most vulnerable
Four months ago Michelle Veenker was facing the serious prospect that her daughter, who has suffered with mental illness for about eight years, would be dropped from her support services and consequently end up on the streets, or worse.
“If they cut services and at some point again (my daughter) ends up dropped, if she becomes ill, she’ll end up dead,” Veenker told the Clackamas Review in March. “They committed her (in 2007) because she was so disorganized in her thought process that they didn’t think she could manage to get her own food, that she’d die somewhere.”
At that point Department of Human Services programs were looking at potential budget reductions of up to 30 percent, which would have decimated services.
But thanks to an outpouring of advocacy, the Legislature scaled back those cuts to, so far, only minor reductions.
“We really dodged a bullet,” said county DHS Director Cindy Becker. “There was a lot of great advocacy and the legislators really paid a lot of attention to human services and really understood that cuts in human services is going to have nasty effects in all other parts of the system.”
DHS didn’t go entirely unscathed; no providers will see cost of living wage increases, employment and housing assistance for people with developmental disabilities was reduced, drug and alcohol prevention was reduced, dental benefits and funding for primary care clinics under the Oregon Health Plan were reduced. Those are statewide reductions, so Becker said it wasn’t clear yet how hard Clackamas would be hit.
But considering that the state was looking at a 90 percent reduction in outpatient mental health services for non-Medicaid consumers; a 50 percent reduction for acute inpatient care; closing the Blue Mountain Recovery Center, losing 60 state hospital beds; a 50 percent cut for alcohol and drug treatment services for non-Medicaid clients; and eliminating a residential treatment program for non-Medicaid clients, the cuts that did come were minor.
For Veenker, that has meant a reprieve.
“You know, so far, so good,” she said of her daughter, Tessa Sieler, of Sandy. “She has been able to get most of the services. She got out of the hospital, lived with her sister and is now in a studio apartment, it’s subsidized housing but it’s still a place of her own. She’s going through an evaluation for a part time job.”
Services still lacking
Still, neither Becker nor Veenker would say things are good — they’re just less bad than expected.
“We were thinking whole huge areas were going to be decimated, and that didn’t happen,” Becker said. “The system is in neutral: we’re not progressing where we all need to go, but we’re able to pretty much maintain what we have. In this economy some would say that’s a win.”
Veenker was less optimistic, saying she and other volunteers with the National Alliance on Mental Illness are struggling to keep some people’s heads above water.
“I don’t want to say things are good; people are still having problems, I’m still getting calls, ‘my daughter, my son, we can’t get them services,’” Veenker said. “Because of the economy, it’s just regardless of them not getting funding cuts, there never was enough funding and that goes way back to Reagan. He decided people shouldn’t be hospitalized but treated in their community. The problem is they never did a good community basis of care, we are still looking at care is based on crisis care as opposed to wellness care.”
NAMI has stockpiles of food and other basic necessities that it can give to people who are struggling, helps pay co-pays for doctor visits, helps refer people to the right services at the county, runs emergency and non-emergency hotlines and more.
“If people are falling through the cracks and they just need help, we’re here,” Veenker said. But, she added, “It’s not going to work until we can get funds and increase preventive care, until we start focusing on wellness instead of crisis.”