Shasta Scout: More Than 150 Of Shasta County’s Most Vulnerable Residents Will Be Affected by Opportunity Center Closure

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A nearly sixty-year-old program that provides employment stipends to eighty-five of Shasta County’s physically, mentally, intellectually, or developmentally disabled adults is slated to close at the end of June. 

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors made the unanimous decision for financial reasons after an emotional discussion held at the end of a marathon more-than-twelve-hour public meeting last Tuesday, February 28.

Calling the program “not fiscally viable,” Health and Human Services Agency Branch Director Megan Dorney and Deputy Branch Director for Economic Mobility Julie Hope explained to Supervisors that the Center has been subsidized from the County’s general fund since 2017 and expenditures for the Center’s 2022/23 fiscal year are currently expected to exceed revenues by approximately $1.05 million.

The program’s dire financial straits have been caused by a combination of routine business cost increases and significant long-term management mistakes, Dorney and Hope said, including failure to track contracts, renew grants, and evaluate the cost of services. But Hope still told the Board that the issues at the Center “have nothing to do with the performance of staff.”

Mike Thomas, who works for the Opportunity Center as an instructor, said he felt disgusted after hearing Dorney and Hope’s presentation.

“It’s true,” Thomas told the Board “that multiple factors have led to the financial ruin of the program, but I don’t think we should sit here and pretend that all of them are weighted equally . . . It’s not rocket science. You can’t overestimate revenues, understate expenditures, grossly undercharge for services, not adjust business practices, and then expect a successful outcome in any business.”

Mary Rickert, who’s been a supervisor for six years, said closing the Opportunity Center is perhaps the most difficult decision she’s had to make during her time in County leadership. She said she worries about how the program’s closure might affect some of the County’s most vulnerable citizens, like Travis Gregorio, who attempted suicide after he was released with only three days notice from the Opportunity Center’s job training program in February.

It’s a scenario Gregorio’s mother, Susan Power, says the County staff should have anticipated because, like many Opportunity Center clients, Gregorio is at high risk for self harm due to multiple mental health disabilities. He struggles with communication, transitions and impulse control.

Both he and his parents told Shasta Scout last month that the County’s failure to provide a safe transition plan and communicate his change in services in a trauma-informed way were the reasons he attempted suicide after being let go early from his last day at the Center.

Gregorio met with Shasta Scout again at the Redding library this week. He said a long-term loan from his parents has allowed him to remain housed, but he’s recently spent a few nights on the streets with unsheltered friends anyway. He somehow feels more at home there right now, he said, because like his unsheltered friends he has no job, or money.

Travis Gregorio during a meeting with Shasta Scout at the Redding Library on March 8. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

Without the predictability of a job and schedule, Gregorio explained, it’s difficult to maintain good mental health. But for now, he said, the services he’s receiving from Hill Country’s Counseling And Recovery Engagement (CARE) Center are helping.

Gregorio lost his services with the Opportunity Center more than a month ago, but he is still waiting for his initial intake for possible job placement with the Department of Rehabilitation. Without his Opportunity Center paychecks his social security benefits should increase in another four weeks, he said, but the amount he’ll receive still won’t be enough to pay his basic expenses.

In response to questions from Shasta Scout Amy Koslosky, a Supervising Community Education Specialist with Shasta County County said the County has no legal responsibility to transition the Opportunity Center’s clients, programs and services to other organizations but said that staff will do all they can to provide a smooth and orderly transition as the Center closes.

Thomas, who works at the Opportunity Center and says he’s seeing first hand how clients are impacted, says the County’s efforts so far are not nearly enough.

“I just want to say that the legacy of this program deserves better,” Thomas told supervisors. “I hope that one day somebody will at least acknowledge and own up to the county’s role in this situation because this isn’t something that just passively happened.”

Supervisor Kevin Crye said he couldn’t agree with Thomas’s sentiments more, emphasizing that in the days ahead “public accountability should be at the forefront.”

“There were huge, huge errors made,” Crye said. “And they were perpetuated over many years.”

In a recent press release, Health and Human Services Agency Director Laura Burch said that Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency is “ensuring the health and well-being of clients and staff as the program moves from county hands to private, non-profit management.”

But no one yet knows which, if any, nonprofit organization will commit to serving the needs of those impacted by the Center’s closure.