A proposed funding cut to the mental health board could reduce services to Evanston residents most in need, human services workers said.
At the Feb. 9 budget meeting, Evanston City Council members approved a 10 percent cut to the mental health board’s annual budget of $859,000. The cut means losing nearly $90,000 in city funding for residents who suffer from psychiatric problems, mental disabilities and substance abuse.
Although mental health board members successfully avoided the previously proposed 25 percent cut to their funding, losing 10 percent could cause agencies to cut programs that aid the city’s disadvantaged. The board uses money from the city’s general budget to evaluate and fund the city’s mental health agencies.
Board member Susan Canter is grateful the city council reconsidered the original budget cut, but she is worried agencies will be hurt. More than 7,000 residents rely on agencies funded by the board, she said.
“It’s not the board, it’s the agencies we fund that could feel the pinch,” Canter said. “Many of the agencies that we fund serve the poorest people in the community.”
Don Baker, executive director of Youth Organizations Umbrella, Inc., a youth development agency, said his group receives about $90,000 each year from the mental health board. The funds go to counseling, a 24-hour crisis response service and five Evanston after-school programs. If funding is cut, an after-school program may have to be eliminated, he said.
“Evanston prides itself on being this diverse community, but diversity doesn’t come free,” Baker said. “A number of our citizens are very vulnerable, and it requires support systems.”
At a Jan. 26 budget meeting, Paul Selden, executive director of Connections for the Homeless, said the services the board supports contributes to Evanston’s unique character.
“The mental health board is one of those institutions that helps to keep this a diverse community,” Selden said. “It is one of the very few tax-levy kind of activities that the city does that really puts its commitment behind the idea that this should be an economically and socially diverse community.”
Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) said the city council didn’t want to make cuts to the board because its funding provides important services to community members. The council is no longer proposing the 25 percent cut because it doesn’t want to significantly damage the nonprofit board, especially without advance notice to citizens, she said.
“I was very sorry to include the mental health board with other cuts,” Tisdahl said. “Everything they’re doing is a service people have wanted, but in the budget crisis, we have to streamline operations.”
Human services workers agreed that the city council supports mental health initiatives, but compensating for the pension fund deficit is paramount. They worry that as the city struggles to balance the budget, the economy is spiraling into a possible recession with more residents needing aid from human services agencies.
“One of the strengths of Evanston has been its human service network, and they keep not supporting us,” Baker said. “This has been a struggle for some time now, and it may push us over the edge.”
