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State help for deaf is casualty of fund cuts | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Born with congenital aphasia, Patti Scott's hearing is impaired, her speech garbled. Unable to communicate with much of the world, she lived in frustrated, angry silence.
"I was alone and, really, I was depressed," Scott, 60, said recently through a signing interpreter.
Fourteen years ago, that changed. Scott joined DEAF Options, a mental health agency in Redford Township that serves the deaf. Counselors took her to doctor appointments, visited her apartment and introduced her to other deaf clients.
"They've helped me with medications, with budgeting my money," Scott said. "They are always checking and making sure I'm OK."
After more than two decades in operation, DEAF Options is set to close this month because of state budget cuts. Advocates say this is the latest casualty in an era of dwindling funds for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Though a few places in Metro Detroit offer sign language interpreting, DEAF Options is the only low-income option for the deaf seeking mental health services.
"We're losing services everywhere," said Marcy Colton, director of Deaf C.A.N.!, based in Sylvan Lake. "We represent a very large disability group, but we have so few services."
Many deaf people grow up in hearing families and feel disconnected even in their own homes. Living in social and psychological isolation, some struggle their entire lives with paranoia and depression.
Psychological counseling for the deaf, then, needs to be tailored to them with therapists who also are either deaf or familiar with nonverbal cues, advocates say. More than 90,000 people in Michigan are deaf, according to the state Division on Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
"If you're not picking up these cues as a therapist, you can misread everything that's going on," Colton said.
At DEAF Options, case managers who are also deaf individually counsel clients. Assistance extends outside the office, with rides to doctor appointments and home visits to help with things like grocery shopping and cooking. At hospital visits, staff members often act as advocates, ensuring that the facility provides a signing interpreter, as required by the Americans With Disabilities Act.
In the last few months, as the facility prepared to close, client rolls have been cut, from 100 to now about 20.
For 25 years, the facility relied heavily on state funds, disbursed by the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency. Last fall, the agency cut its direct funding to the facility, which had averaged $500,000 annually. Those dollars made up about 95 percent of the nonprofit's operating budget.
"It's a sign of the times," said Reichelle Tucker, who founded DEAF Options. "The county, the state — they're broke."
In 2009, state legislators, faced with a potential $1.8 billion deficit, cut $40 million statewide in community mental health programs. Of that total, $20.7 million came from Wayne County.
"For many of them, that was the only funding that they had," said Veda Sharp, executive director of the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency. "The cut we received was disproportionate."
The cut eliminated funds for counseling the deaf, as well as those with developmental disabilities, serious emotional disturbances and substance abuse disorders, Sharp said.
"We couldn't fund those as well," she said.
The few clients who remain at DEAF Options will soon be transferred to the county's managed care network — an arrangement that includes hiring subcontractors to provide therapy at a lower cost to the county, Sharp said. Deaf clients will be provided with interpreters, she added.
That gives little comfort, though, to Scott, who has come to view staff at DEAF Options as friends.
"How am I going to get help?" Scott asked. "I just feel like giving up, disappearing."
Funds are scarce
Advocates say that in recent decades, public funds for the deaf and hard of hearing had become scarce.
In contrast to the growing awareness in the '80s and '90s of deafness as a disability, there are few remaining funding sources specific to deaf populations, said Nan Asher, who was director of the Michigan Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing until it, too, closed its doors in October.
The agency, which had served the Lansing area since 1931, relied mostly on private donations and some public grants, she said.
But in recent years, agencies like hers had to compete with other disabled populations for grants and foundation dollars, she added.
"We had nobody with deep pockets to help us, really," Asher said.
Born with congenital aphasia, Patti Scott's hearing is impaired, her speech garbled. Unable to communicate with much of the world, she lived in frustrated, angry silence.
"I was alone and, really, I was depressed," Scott, 60, said recently through a signing interpreter.
Fourteen years ago, that changed. Scott joined DEAF Options, a mental health agency in Redford Township that serves the deaf. Counselors took her to doctor appointments, visited her apartment and introduced her to other deaf clients.
"They've helped me with medications, with budgeting my money," Scott said. "They are always checking and making sure I'm OK."
After more than two decades in operation, DEAF Options is set to close this month because of state budget cuts. Advocates say this is the latest casualty in an era of dwindling funds for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Though a few places in Metro Detroit offer sign language interpreting, DEAF Options is the only low-income option for the deaf seeking mental health services.
"We're losing services everywhere," said Marcy Colton, director of Deaf C.A.N.!, based in Sylvan Lake. "We represent a very large disability group, but we have so few services."
Many deaf people grow up in hearing families and feel disconnected even in their own homes. Living in social and psychological isolation, some struggle their entire lives with paranoia and depression.
Psychological counseling for the deaf, then, needs to be tailored to them with therapists who also are either deaf or familiar with nonverbal cues, advocates say. More than 90,000 people in Michigan are deaf, according to the state Division on Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
"If you're not picking up these cues as a therapist, you can misread everything that's going on," Colton said.
At DEAF Options, case managers who are also deaf individually counsel clients. Assistance extends outside the office, with rides to doctor appointments and home visits to help with things like grocery shopping and cooking. At hospital visits, staff members often act as advocates, ensuring that the facility provides a signing interpreter, as required by the Americans With Disabilities Act.
In the last few months, as the facility prepared to close, client rolls have been cut, from 100 to now about 20.
For 25 years, the facility relied heavily on state funds, disbursed by the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency. Last fall, the agency cut its direct funding to the facility, which had averaged $500,000 annually. Those dollars made up about 95 percent of the nonprofit's operating budget.
"It's a sign of the times," said Reichelle Tucker, who founded DEAF Options. "The county, the state — they're broke."
In 2009, state legislators, faced with a potential $1.8 billion deficit, cut $40 million statewide in community mental health programs. Of that total, $20.7 million came from Wayne County.
"For many of them, that was the only funding that they had," said Veda Sharp, executive director of the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency. "The cut we received was disproportionate."
The cut eliminated funds for counseling the deaf, as well as those with developmental disabilities, serious emotional disturbances and substance abuse disorders, Sharp said.
"We couldn't fund those as well," she said.
The few clients who remain at DEAF Options will soon be transferred to the county's managed care network — an arrangement that includes hiring subcontractors to provide therapy at a lower cost to the county, Sharp said. Deaf clients will be provided with interpreters, she added.
That gives little comfort, though, to Scott, who has come to view staff at DEAF Options as friends.
"How am I going to get help?" Scott asked. "I just feel like giving up, disappearing."
Funds are scarce
Advocates say that in recent decades, public funds for the deaf and hard of hearing had become scarce.
In contrast to the growing awareness in the '80s and '90s of deafness as a disability, there are few remaining funding sources specific to deaf populations, said Nan Asher, who was director of the Michigan Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing until it, too, closed its doors in October.
The agency, which had served the Lansing area since 1931, relied mostly on private donations and some public grants, she said.
But in recent years, agencies like hers had to compete with other disabled populations for grants and foundation dollars, she added.
"We had nobody with deep pockets to help us, really," Asher said.