DHS: A reprieve for the most vulnerable

By Matthew Graham

The Clackamas Review, Aug 18, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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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.

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