By Scott Brinton
The Bellmore-based Long Island Crisis Center has little to give thanks for this Thanksgiving. Linda Leonard, the center's executive director, describes the round-the-clock, suicide-prevention agency with one word -- "decimated."
Since losing $103,000 in "discretionary" Nassau County contracts in January, the Crisis Center has shut down its Community Education Department, which sent social workers into Nassau's public schools for suicide-prevention workshops. The program served thousands of students annually.
"We were the only agency doing adolescent-suicide prevention in the schools," said Ms. Leonard.
Because of the contract cut, the Roosevelt and Hempstead school districts also lost their Crisis Center social worker, who counseled students ranging from runaways to neglected and abused children.
Then, in September, the federal government eliminated its $300,000 annual grant to the Crisis Center for its Street Outreach Program. Street Outreach sent teams of social workers in vans to Nassau's most blighted neighborhoods, searching for young people in need. The social workers handled a myriad of problems, from adolescent HIV/AIDS to drug abuse.
Now, the Crisis Center's white-and-red Outreach van no longer makes its rounds. Teenagers hang out on street corners, waiting for trouble without a lifeline.
"The program ended Sept. 30. That was unfortunate because we've had such a hard year," said Ms. Leonard.
The Crisis Center still provides 24-hour, seven-day-a-week suicide-hotline counseling. However, as 2000 comes to a close, the agency's very future appears in jeopardy.
To date, Long Island Crisis still has received no word about its county contracts for 2001. "Normally, in the past, we would get the contract and sign it in the early fall. We haven't even gotten the contract at this point," said Ms. Leonard.
Jules Stelboum of Bellmore, a hotline counselor for 11 years, said that if the center were to close, "It would be a tremendous loss for Nassau County. There are an awful lot of people out there -- kids -- who need our expertise."
Ms. Leonard said she hopes to see at least $60,000 of the $103,000 that Nassau cut restored for next year, but she has no idea whether it will be. One thing is certain: She is not counting on an advance payment from the county in January, which the agency had used in the past to meet expenses during the early part of the year. (The center receives county-contract monies as reimbursements for services rendered; hence the need for the advance.)
Even if the Crisis Center were to have 60 percent of its lost funds returned, the agency would remain crippled with a more than $40,000 budget gap. "We have some money in the bank. For 30 years, we've saved. This is the rainy day, but you can't keep operating forever with such a deficit budget," said Ms. Leonard. At the very least, the agency might have to forgo its successful on-line counseling center, she said.
Enter Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick).
He was among a cadre of Democratic legislators who pushed to have $1 million restored for the Nassau County Youth Board this year. County Executive Thomas Gulotta sliced the Youth Board's budget in half -- by roughly $4.35 million -- in December 1999 to help fill a $60 million hole in the county budget. Youth Board was then forced to slash its discretionary contracts with such agencies as the Crisis Center.
With the restored monies, the center got back $27,000 of lost funds in August. The agency was, however, slated to receive an even greater share of returned funds, said Mr. Denenberg. "They were on tap to get a lot more, but they got 27 percent," he said.
County Executive Gulotta gave $200,000 of the $1 million to the Association for the Help of Retarded Children and United Cerebral Palsy -- monies that should have gone to the Crisis Center, among other small, non-profit agencies, according to the legislator.
Ms. Leonard only learned that the Crisis Center was in line to receive a greater share from the county during a meeting last Thursday with Mr. Denenberg, Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury), presiding officer of the Legislature, and Youth Board officials.
Mr. Denenberg arranged the get-together at the County Legislature building in Mineola to lobby Youth Board to provide greater funding for the Crisis Center, as well as for Tempo Group, a drug-rehabilitation clinic in North Merrick. (For more about Tempo, see shaded box.)
According to the 2001 county budget, Youth Board is to get back about $2.5 million of the $4.35 million that was cut from its budget last December, meaning the Crisis Center can expect more from Nassau. How much, though, no one is certain.
How to reach LI Crisis Center
*The Long Island Crisis Center is at 2740 Martin Ave., Bellmore.
*Its hotline can be reached at (516) 679-1111 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
*Its business line is (516) 826-0244.
*Free, on-line counseling services are also available through the center at www.licrisiscenter.org.
