By Robert D. Davila, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Oct. 9--Sacramento County supervisors gave Project HOPE a reprieve Tuesday amid confusion over whether a cut in state welfare spending would have spelled the end of the outreach program for mentally ill homeless people.
Regardless of the answer, the Board of Supervisors agreed to continue the program, which pairs law enforcement officers with social workers to help mentally ill street people get access to services. The board ordered a report in 30 days on funding for Project HOPE, which has assisted more than 2,000 people since November 1999 at an annual cost of $238,500, a staff report states.
'From my perspective, this is a program that has proven its worth,' Supervisor Roger Dickinson said.
Meanwhile, the board also voted to delete 55 vacant jobs and use one-time funds to cover the loss of $7.9 million to other local health and welfare programs under a number of recent state budget vetoes by Gov. Gray Davis. The governor deleted those funds to help close a $24 billion shortfall in the state budget.
While the county reductions preserve programs, the loss of positions will increase delays for applicants and caseloads for social workers, officials said, warning that deeper state cutbacks are expected next year.
'This is only the tip of the iceberg of what looks to be significant reductions to come,' said Penelope Clarke, administrator of the Public Protection and Human Assistance Agency.
County officials had proposed halting outreach to mentally ill homeless under Project HOPE -- which provides housing and other assistance -- because Davis vetoed $10 million statewide in mental health services for homeless adults.
Clarke told supervisors the county received 'conflicting information' from state officials about the effect of the veto on Project HOPE, which was established under bills authored by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, in 1999 and 2000.
Steinberg's chief of staff, Andrea Jackson, said Tuesday that the veto affects funding only for communities just starting programs -- not Sacramento County, which launched Project HOPE as a pilot effort in November 1999. She said Steinberg called supervisors after reading about the county's plans in The Bee.
'Darrell is working with the county and the state Department of Mental Health to make sure this program continues in Sacramento County,' Jackson said.
State mental health chief Stephen Mayberg said he was 'surprised' to learn Sacramento County planned to eliminate Project HOPE. He said there were no plans to cut existing programs in 26 communities, including El Dorado, Placer and Sacramento counties.
But Mayberg added that officials are studying a proposal to ask some counties with established programs to accept less money to make more funds available to new HOPE projects in seven counties, including Yolo County, that would be targeted by the governor's veto.
'We would still have provisos about what we would see as permissible to eliminate,' Mayberg said. 'We would still want to maintain the integrity of the whole program, and outreach is a critical part of that.'
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(c) 2002, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
