Budget Cut but Doors to Remain Open : Mental Health Clinic Given a Reprieve

The glossy magazine pictures of happy families, large houses and young professionals dressed for success that Frank was carefully pasting on a large sheet of white paper were, he said, his “dreams and goals come true.”

Frank, who asked that his last name not be used, is a 25-year-old Stanton man suffering from severe manic depression who receives treatment four days a week at the Adult Outpatient Treatment Services Clinic in Garden Grove.

He is one of 600 low-income, mentally ill people who officials say might be in jails or mental hospitals if they weren’t able to be treated at the facility, which is operated by the Orange County Mental Health Department.

This week, Frank said he was worried about a proposal to close the clinic in October to save county government $1.2 million. The closure would be part of the Board of Supervisors’ effort to reduce the county’s budget by 5% to $1.7 billion for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Pulling nervously at his collar-length brown hair, Frank said: “It would really be a shame if they closed this place. It’s really convenient because I live only three miles away.

“My dad drives me here. But I was going to start taking the bus because I don’t want to put too much strain on him because he’s getting old. And I want to become more independent. But if they close this place, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Frank, a former janitor who has been in mental hospitals twice in the last five years and is on heavy doses of medications, said, “If I can just get some stability, some structure to my life, maybe I can get a job where you wear a tie--and even a girlfriend.”

On Thursday, the clinic received an unexpected reprieve when the Board of Supervisors voted to keep the facility open. However, its budget was reduced by 25% to $900,000, which will mean that the 35-member staff will be shaved by 10 members through attrition, said Doug Barton, deputy director of Adult Community Mental Health Services, which operates the county’s eight mental health clinics.

“This will mean a reduction in services, but nowhere near what we had expected,” Barton said Thursday. He added that the board’s action had helped to preserve the system of neighborhood mental health facilities. Neighborhood clinics, Barton said, provide geographic convenience that is crucial to successful treatment of mental patients.

If the Garden Grove clinic had been closed, Barton said, its clients would have been transferred to mental health facilities in Santa Ana, Anaheim and Westminster. “But about 25% of them would not have hooked up for services at these new locations,” Barton said. “That’s because many of these individuals are very seriously ill with schizophrenia and other chronic mental illnesses that have caused them to be hospitalized several times. So, they’re disoriented and have a difficult time using public transportation.”

Carol Schnitger, president of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Orange County, which lobbied against the closure, said: “The mentally ill do not make adjustments easily. Many of them live on their own in board-and-care homes, without families who can drive them places, so it’s difficult for them to get to the clinic for treatment.

“If they don’t get treatment, they get into trouble and are jailed or hospitalized. These alternatives are more costly to the county than keeping the clinic open.”

Many clients, such as Frank, depend on parents who are often aging and infirm to drive them to the clinic, Barton said. Others need neighborhood clinics that they can walk to, Barton said, because few of them are able to negotiate bus lines, and even fewer are able to drive. However, Barton noted that the clinic does provide limited van transportation to some clients.

The original proposal to close the Garden Grove clinic was not made because of a low caseload or concerns about the quality of care, Barton said. Rather, the Garden Grove site was chosen for administrative ease, Barton said. The lease on the facility is up in April, and the landlord for the three-story building located in a shopping center had told the county that he would not be renewing it.

With Thursday’s vote, Barton said, funds are now available to move to a new location in Garden Grove at the end of the lease in April.