Nonprofit Says It Has Won County Mental Health Contract
Santa Barbara County's spokesman won't confirm PathPoint has been selected, saying negotiations are ongoing.
In the wake of budget cuts, Santa Barbara County’s new scaled-down structure of providing mental health services is beginning to take shape, with the leader of one local nonprofit organization confirming Monday that her company won a county contract to become the South Coast’s primary provider of support services.
To get an idea of just how pared down the new model will be, consider this: If formally selected, the nonprofit PathPoint most likely would still need to cut nearly three-fourths of its 39-member work force, said Cindy Burton, CEO of the organization formerly known as Work Training Services.
All told, for the current budget year, a handful of nonprofits serving South Coast residents with mental illness are losing $3 million worth of contracts. Those contracts are being consolidated into the single contract — the one presumably awarded to PathPoint — for an amount not to exceed $1 million annually.
County spokesman William Boyer declined to confirm PathPoint’s selection, saying only that contracts are scheduled to be negotiated this week. But others in the industry said that they, too, had heard PathPoint was offered the contract.
“I’m trying to focus on the positive,” she said. “I really just can’t say enough about how pleased I am that PathPoint was awarded this contract.”
She added that there is a one-week “protest period” for other bidders that will close Friday.
Support services for people with mental illness — known in the industry as “clients” — include ensuring that they take their medication, teaching them how to pay their bills on time and providing independent-living skills, such as how to shop and get along with roommates, all with an eye toward assisting each individual to reach his or her own goals. If the contract is finalized, PathPoint will perform such tasks for about 130 clients who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychological illnesses.
As a result of the cutbacks, some questions remain about what will happen with the county’s most severe cases.
PathPoint, which for years has been serving and housing those with mental illness in Santa Barbara, will stop providing services to those who require around-the-clock care. It remains to be seen what will happen with those 10 or so people, but Burton said some may be relocated to the North County.
Also, the Casa del Mural residential facility on Calle Real, which provides 24-hour service for severe clients, will be temporarily closed and reopened as a home serving clients whose psychological conditions are milder, Burton said.
Burton said a prominent objective on the part of her firm and the county Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services is to prevent people from ending up on the street. Yet she was hesitant to guarantee that no housing will be lost.
“We’ll certainly have very few people at most who will lose their housing,” she said. “I probably hate to say 100 percent no one will. That’s unrealistic in the best of times. We’re just going to minimize to the best extent possible people losing their housing.”
Meanwhile, a fog of uncertainty surrounds the future of another local resource for those with mental illness, the Fellowship Club. Since 1959, the club has been a sanctuary offering recreation, part-time employment and classes to local residents with mental illness.
Ironically, the uncertainty looms at a time when the effort to build a new facility for the Fellowship Club is nearly finished. In November, the club is expected to move from its cramped bungalow on Chapala Street to a building four times its size on Garden Street near the intersection of Ortega Street, said Annmarie Cameron, executive director of the nonprofit Mental Health Association of Santa Barbara, which runs the Fellowship Club under a contract with the county.
There’s only enough county funding to keep the Fellowship Club open in its current form until Jan. 1, said Cameron, whose organization also raised money for the Fellowship Club’s new location. What happens after Jan. 1, she said, remains to be seen.
Like Burton, however, Cameron said she’s trying to look on the bright side.
“To sum it up, there still will be losses of services, but we are doing our best to make lemonade out of lemons,” she said. “I honestly look forward to going forward because there is no going back.”
The county’s scaled-down service model means the Mental Health Association is losing about half of its county contract, Cameron said. It’s a significant hit: Last year, the organization’s county contract constituted a full three-quarters of its budget.
Because of the cuts, the Mental Health Association will keep the two houses it owns but will stop providing services to the clients living inside. Come November, those services will be provided by the winner of the contract — presumably PathPoint. The Mental Health Association still will offer other services, such as a “family advocate program,” which offers support and education to the family members of adults with mentally illness.
Cameron, whose firm did not apply for the South Coast contract, said the county did well by selecting PathPoint, adding that it is the best organization for the job.
In a break from the acrimony that has characterized the months-long struggle between the nonprofit organizations and the county, Burton and Cameron were careful to credit ADMHS’ recent efforts to find solutions.
“I believe that they are taking the changes to clients seriously,” Cameron said. “They are looking at each person and assessing what they can do to minimize their impacts.”
As for why some severe clients may end up in the North County, Burton said it’s largely related to the real-estate realities of Santa Barbara County. In Santa Maria, many of the caretakers who provide around-the-clock service do so from their own homes. There was a time when many did this on the South Coast, as well, she said, but over the years, as those caretakers retired and sold off their homes, it has become financially unfeasible for new caretakers to purchase homes.
Noozhawk staff writer Rob Kuznia can be reached at .
» wrote on 08/26/08 @ 09:44 AM
To add a point of clarification to this story, the Fellowship Club will not be completely closing as of January 1. The funding for that program will be significantly reduced and it is still uncertain what form or how much of the existing program will be kept intact. Community forums are being held this fall to determine what the community of mental health consumers are interested in and would like to see offered at the Fellowship Club. Presumably there will be some support for the new program design. The Mental Health Association welcomes positive change; we also have a firm commitment to providing the services to those who currently rely on the Fellowship Club on a daily basis. Thank you Noozhawk for a follow up story about an important community issue.