Adult care center will close again
Ryan Carter
Citing lack of funds and looming state budget cuts, an adult care
center that catered to people with Alzheimer’s disease and similar
ailments is scheduled to close again, just two months after its
reopening.
Burbank Adult Service and Resource Center is scheduled to close
Feb. 10 and remain so until at least June 30, officials said.
“A difficult decision has been made by the board of directors to
suspend services while further fund-raising activities take place, in
order to provide a sustainable, long-term, stable environment for
clients,” Administrator Linda G. Crane wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to
clients.
Center support groups will continue to meet.
Since it was established in 1998 inside the First Christian Church
at 221 S. Sixth St., the center served a unique niche. Unlike local
for-profit adult health-care centers that require medical
supervision, this nonprofit center provided area residents with
dementia-related problems with a nonmedical environment. Food, field
trips, games and exercise were part of the day. Meanwhile, family
members could tend to other business. Fees at the center were on a
sliding scale of $15 to $40 per day, based on ability to pay.
“It’s devastating,” said Bur- bank resident Christine Bevis, who
brought her mother, Ruth, to the facility. “Every time we get a
little progress, the rug is yanked from right underneath us.”
In December 2001, the center closed when its operator, the
Assistance League of Southern California, pulled out because it could
not support the center’s annual $250,000 budget.
It reopened last month with funding from the Burbank-based
nonprofit Schutrum-Piteo Foundation, with support from state Sen.
Jack Scott’s office, after a year of organizing. The foundation had
been the center’s sole funding source since it opened last month.
Since then, between three and five locals used the facility each
day. Before the December 2001 closing, about 20 clients were
regularly using the center.
Schutrum-Piteo Foundation officials declined to disclose daily
operating costs at the center, but Chief Financial Officer Donald J.
Savarese said with poor economic conditions, grant money did not come
on time.
“My heart is broken about this,” center Director David Mitchell
said. “Everyone’s hearts are broken.”
Keeping such a service alive can be difficult, city officials
said.
“It’s the only center that deals with the social environment [of
clients] here in Burbank,” said Eric Hansen, deputy director of
senior and human services.
The city pitched in at the center with a nutrition program.
Because nonprofit centers such as this one accept people with
dementia and related problems but who are otherwise healthy and not
on Medi-Cal, it’s harder to tap government funding sources, Hansen
said.