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Another hostage can’t cope

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Illinois

Strapped for cash as a result of Illinois’ year-long budget logjam, Champaign County’s mental and behavioral health agency Community Elements is being forced to make deep cuts in two programs serving homeless men and troubled youths.

The agency will close its Roundhouse residential facility for youth on June 10 and will shut down the remainder of the level 1 program at its TIMES Center for homeless men in transition on June 30, according to CEO Sheila Ferguson. […]

To help save money, Community Elements already cut level 1 at the TIMES Center in January from 50 beds to 25 and reduced staffing by 12 jobs, six of them full-time.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 12:43 pm

Comments

Is this WINNING, Christine?
Or “starve the beast”?
Or both?

Drop theTA, and fund everything for 6 months.

Comment by Langhorne Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 12:47 pm
I hear rumors that the GA overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan, compromise, $600 million emergency appropriation for social service providers three weeks ago.

Has anyone checked the governor’s inbox? He’s expressed such deep-felt concern about the issue in the past.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 12:50 pm
The Governor’s roundhouse to Roundhouse

Comment by Qui Tam Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 12:52 pm
Queue the Owl…

Comment by Trolling Troll Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:13 pm
Sign the bill Governor! or are you too busy on your tour?

to the legislature, get back to work.

Comment by burbanite Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:18 pm
You have to remember that in very few instances, social service agencies just can’t “rebound” or “reopen”. In most cases the damage will be permanent even when the tap is turned back on to a trickle.

Feature not Bug

Somewhere at Ounce of Prevention, a box was checked.

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:27 pm
I wonder if anyone at Ounce of Prevention has been handed a pink slip lately. They may say they are feeling the pain, but are they paying the price???

Comment by Anon221 Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:43 pm
Money aside, the cost in human lives is reprehensible. Rauner and Radogno an the IL Republican Party’s starve-the-beast approach is unconscionable. What I want the most is to be able to disassociate the IL Republican Party with Raner.

Comment by Earnest Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:50 pm
Ounce raised over $1MM at their luncheon in April. The Gov was there. Some beasts feel the squeezing more than others.

Comment by Henry Francis Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 1:59 pm
=I wonder if anyone at Ounce of Prevention has been handed a pink slip lately.=

Not likely any time soon. My bet is thatthey are going to see a significant windfall. I just saw a new set of questions that are attached to the 0-3 grant for schools and it plays right into their hands. They will get more and more of that money. Clearly organizations like theirs are using the clout of their board members and presidents to change the applications in such a way that it favors them.

Comment by JS Mill Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 2:05 pm
This is sickening.

Way to be a business-friendly state, Illinois. These are real jobs, held by real people, who really work and live and spend money in their communities, and who contribute significantly to the quality of life where they live.

So now not only will the clients they served be denied access to supports that could help them transition to the workforce and become self-sufficient, but we will also have moved MORE people to the unemployment lines.

Last I checked, employers need to have a healthy, educated workforce in safe communities. How do those needs rank against the Turnaround Agenda wish list, which has at best a fantasy return on investment of 1.4%?

There is no way to reconcile what is being done to our state and our fellow human beings, in the name of an ideology for which there is at best a flimsy justification.

The recovery time from this evisceration of human services will be very long indeed, and that just pushes out further and further the time horizon by which we see ANY net positive results from the “reform” agenda being pushed by Mr. Burns.

Lose, lose, lose.

Comment by Pawn Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 2:05 pm
JS Mill- I totally agree, and it makes me wonder, too, how much of the “squeeze” Dr. Rauner is totally OK with.

http://www.theounce.org/what-we-do/initiatives

Just looking at the Home Visits/Doula site under Initiatives, their overall numbers of service are not that high, and there are vast gaps in service areas- see Western Illinois for example.

Venture Capitalism at the Social Service level???

Comment by Anon221 Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 2:39 pm
Somewhere at Ounce of Prevention, a box was checked.

Meaning that another one has gone down that they can subsume after the apocalypse.

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 2:49 pm
Yesterday I posted a 2014 article from the Trib where Dr. Rauner says she spends 65 hours a week thinking/working on Ounce issues. The 990 (page 14) states otherwise… maybe the other 27.5 hours are volunteer time.

http://tinyurl.com/hoz55uw

Comparison by ProPublica:

Ounce:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363186328

Community Elements Inc.:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/370913985

Comment by Anon221 Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 2:59 pm
To further drive the point home…

From the Ounce website-

The Ounce partners with the following organizations to provide our doula and home visiting services to young families in Illinois.

•Community Elements

(there are many others listed, but you get the point…)

Comment by Anon221 Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 3:04 pm
Nice pull Anon221! Really nice. Ounce will survive just fine. It is as I suspected. They are waiting to pick up the pieces. This is “venture capital” style social services- destroy the competition then take over the ruins of it. That is why they retained their CEO.

Venture Capital Social Services have been born.

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 3:41 pm
A large number of men served by Community Elements at the TIMES Center are those with recent releases from prison facing barriers to employment and having mental health needs. This will make C-U a less safe community. All in the name of destroying public sector collective bargaining. Rauner and Rodogno, the latter spewing increasingly callous and mean spirited rhetoric, are deliberately destroying social safety net in support of an agenda with no mandate. Rauner is making a strong case as being the least effective and yet most destructive governor in Illinois history.

Comment by kitty Friday, Jun 3, 16 @ 4:37 pm