Elgin considers emergency loan for Latino Treatment Center

The Latino Treatment Center is likely to be the third human services nonprofit slated to get an emergency loan from the city of Elgin to help it deal with the consequences of the state's fiscal crisis.

City council members voted unanimously at their committee of the whole meeting Wednesday to approve the $50,000 loan to the agency, which provides bilingual, outpatient substance abuse treatment to mostly court-mandated Spanish-speaking clients.

“It's been a really tough year,” agency executive director Adriana Trino said.

Even with the legislature's stopgap spending plan through December, the Latino Treatment Center has not received any state payments for the current fiscal year and is owed $65,000, Trino said.

The agency is down to five staff members after laying off about half its employees, she said, and it is dipping into reserves and using a line of credit to pay for salaries.

“Instead of shopping at Wal-Mart for supplies, we are going to the Dollar store,” Trino said. “Everything we could do, we've done.”

About 75 percent of the center's 275 clients are from Elgin. The emergency loan program is, ultimately, all about helping residents, Mayor David Kaptain said. “That's what a city is supposed to do. We have to protect the people within our community.”

The agency has smaller offices in Chicago and West Chicago, one of which likely would close if the financial situation doesn't improve by year's end, Trino said.

The agency's budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year is about $342,000, mostly in state contracts including a new $80,000 contract with the Department of Children and Family Services, Trino said.

“We are excited about that and it's great on paper, but it doesn't mean anything with the state,” she said.

Elgin's emergency loan program has $200,000 remaining. The Association for Individual Development got a $200,000 loan in January, followed by Ecker Center for Mental Health with a $175,000 loan in March.

Ecker made its first payment; AID hasn't made any payments yet, Elgin senior management analyst Laura Valdez-Wilson said.

The loans are to be repaid after the state passes a budget or within 18 months.

“The state has made some payments, so we are working individually with each agency,” she said.

Councilwoman Tish Powell called for legislators to take action. “These are real people that are being affected by the state's lacking of having a budget.”