State slashing substance abuse programs

The wooden steps to Melissa Walker's tiny Aurora apartment are lined with chipped paint and pots filled with blooming flowers.

Inside, Walker's bed is hidden behind a black curtain in the living room. Her 12-year-old daughter plays on an old computer.

It isn't much, but it is a far better place for the 32-year-old than her previous street life as a crack and cocaine addict.

In her mid-20s, following a traumatic family event, the nurse turned to drugs and began stealing cars, burglarizing restaurants and shoplifting.

Eventually, she ended up in prison on a four-year sentence.

"I lost my daughter. I lost my career. I lost my home," Walker says, her face turning red, voice shaking and tears holding back behind her glasses. "I had lost any self respect that I had ever had. And I lost my freedom - I misplaced myself."

Yet prison is what saved Walker. While there in 2006, she sought help from drug counselors, through the Breaking Free treatment program, and found a path to sobriety and a normal life. The Aurora-based program works with female prisoners and parolees to help addicts get off drugs before being set free.

"I had tried, I don't know how many times, to quit drugs before I got arrested," Walker said. "When you lose everything that I had lost and when you recognize you have fallen so far ... you are going to consider using drugs until you die or you are going to change. I wasn't ready to die."

But Breaking Free is now shutting its doors to hundreds of people in situations like Walker's thanks to state budget cuts that have slashed 60 percent from the agency's subsidy. The program will have to shave nearly 15 percent from its $2.5 million budget.

Counseling and other services for female prisoners and parolees, substance abuse patients at the Elgin Mental Health Center, and children and teenagers with drug or alcohol addictions are no longer available at Breaking Free and several other agencies in the state.

In all, the state has cut $55 million out of a $113 million budget for substance abuse treatment programs, prompting some to shut down and sparking a wave of layoffs for counselors. Lawmakers are gathering in Springfield this week and they may consider legislation to find revenue to restore the cuts.

If not, treatment experts argue the lack of services will put more drug abusers on the street where they will rob and steal to support their addictions.

More drunks will hit the roads too, they predict.

"What we do is prevent more people from going into (prison) and more people from creating crime on the street," says Sara Moscato Howe, CEO of the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association.

In the end, the state will end up spending more money fighting the increase in crime and imprisoning more people than it saved by slashing funding to programs that help more than 98,000 addicts recover a year, Howe says.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich made those cuts last month as part of a $1.4 billion budget-balancing reduction.

Critics say the cuts were targeted to instigate the most public outrage in order to increase public pressure on House Speaker Michael Madigan to support Blagojevich's revenue-increase plans.

A political fight

Blagojevich, on the other hand, says the cuts, while made reluctantly, were the only responsible thing to do in order to balance an inflated budget sent to him by Madigan.

"These were not reductions that he wanted to make, but reductions he had to make to be the responsible party," said Blagojevich spokeswoman Katie Ridgway.

The feuding continues years of wrangling between Madigan and Blagojevich since he was elected governor in 2002 - disputes that have led to annual budget stalemates at the state Capitol.

Left in the middle, or out in the cold, this time around are agencies like Breaking Free and people like Walker - those who can perhaps afford the bickering and resulting cuts the least, treatment advocates say.

In all, nearly 49 percent of the state's contribution to substance abuse treatment has been sliced from the state's $59 billion budget.

More specifically, all of the state's funding for abuse treatment for the mentally ill, early intervention programs, community education and treatment-related child care was slashed.

"We are just going to treat less people," said Howe, flatly, noting that 42,000 people may go without services because of the cuts.

In a tanking economy, agencies relying on state funding won't be able to make up the difference with fundraisers, she said.

Plus, an even bigger threat looms.

Much of the money cut from the state budget draws a federal match. If the state cuts aren't restored, Howe says the state stands to loose another $55 million by early next year.

Out on the street

The link between fewer state dollars and less treatment is clear and short.

Take the Gateway Foundation, which has facilities in Chicago, Lake Villa, Aurora and several downstate cities.

The drug abuse counseling agency lost $5.2 million in state funding, or 13 percent of its overall budget.

The Lake Villa inpatient treatment facility has already stopped adding names to its waiting list for adult beds and may have to simply clear out a four-month backlog, said Billie Alexander Avery, Gateway's local community director. Avery expects to have to eliminate 50 of the 63 beds set aside for adults at the facility. Its 80 youth beds will be spared, for now.

Addicts turn to the Lake Villa inpatient treatment when there are no other options left, Avery said.

Sometimes they are referred by court in relation to crimes that stemmed from their addictions. Other times, they are entering voluntarily after battling their addictions in other programs for years.

"Many of these calls we are getting are from people who have finally reached a point where they want to change their lives," Avery said.

Those people are now told Gateway can't help.

Avery said she tries to refer them to other agencies, but she knows they are all grappling with the same budget cuts.

The state funding for places like Breaking Free and Gateway makes the services affordable to people who couldn't afford them on their own.

Staying one night at Gateway's inpatient treatment center can cost $450. The state is charged a lower, negotiated rate. Treatment programs usually last between 30 days and 90 days. Counseling at Breaking Free can cost $85 per hour.

The state funding allows these agencies to offer treatment on a sliding scale according to income.

While struggling in a minimum wage job, Walker paid $10 for each session over the last two years. Without the subsidy, Walker says there is no way she could have afforded it.

"This program has been the difference between life and death for me," she says. "I really don't know if I would be clean today if I didn't have this help."