Since the late-1980’s the nonprofit Naaman Center in Elizabethtown has worked to provide residents of Lancaster and Dauphin County with intensive outpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation services. The center receives a considerable portion of it’s referrals and income from private sources; however, the organization also serves County-funded clients, often referred through the parole office. But the County allocation for this fiscal year has already dried up.
According to executive director Tricia Frank, “The year the cap that we had—$52,000—that cap is used now already. And we have five months to go in this fiscal year. We have no more funding.” For the 34 County-referred clients they are currently serving, the center is left with only one compassionate solution: “We’re committed to not discontinuing their care,” Frank said, “We’re going to see them pro bono.”
In recent years, the County has shifted more of its limited drug and alcohol funding toward outpatient services like those provided at Naaman Center. According to Frank, an unintended side effect of this is that many individuals without other options have simply deferred to outpatient service.
“So that ate up our cap,” Frank said, “Because we didn’t want to turn anybody away, and we know that they couldn’t get care elsewhere.”
For all new County referrals, Frank said, the center will seek to help them obtain public medical assistance to fund their care. For those who do not technically qualify for medical assistance—the ‘working poor’ demographic that the County’s drug and alcohol dollars aim to help—the center will be offering the discounted rate typically charged to the County itself. “We are drastically reducing the fee, but they often can’t afford it,” she said.
Many of these referred individuals are coming fresh out of prison, required by mandate to obtain rehabilitation services. As Frank put it, “They have to do this, they’re coming out of prison with no job, no anything. It’s kind of like they’re being told to do something they can’t do.” For those currently being served pro bono, the center is simply drawing funds from their private donations—in effect financing government mandates with private charity dollars.
“If all of our income came from the counties,” Frank asserted, “We’d be in trouble.”
