SANTA CLARA COUNTY PROPOSES DEEP CUTS TO DRUG AND ALCOHOL PROGRAMS

Treatment for the drug- and alcohol-addicted is a fixture of Santa
Clara County's health care system, a network of programs that helps
keep single adults and families out of jails and shelters.

But those vital services provided to thousands each year are now
facing the most severe downsizing in county history. The director of
the Department of Alcohol and Drug Services, known as DADS, is
proposing a reduction of more than 40 percent in some portions of his
$50 million budget.

DADS director Bob Garner doesn't want to make the cuts, which he said
won't necessarily save taxpayers money in the long run. "When you cut
services to addicts, the addicts are still there," he said. "They
simply show up in the jail and the child welfare system and the hospital."

But Garner - who has been asked by the county executive's office to
cut 18 percent of his total budget - knows supervisors will have to
make a host of "Sophie's Choice"-like decisions this spring as they
decide how to address a $230 million shortfall. "We're facing the
worst financial situation I've experienced in my 38 years," he said.

Acting County Executive Gary Graves is now reviewing Garner's
proposal, along with reductions proposed by other department heads.
Beleaguered county officials are hacking at social services for the
eighth consecutive year.

Garner's plan would shut down one of three county methadone clinics.
It would reduce residential treatment, shrinking the number of adults
served from approximately 1,970 to 1,250. Two out of three outpatient
clinics would close. And transitional housing units, which serve
children and adults moving from shelters and treatment centers into
self-sufficient lives, would be cut by 41 percent, shrinking the 300
beds now available to just 190.

On top of all that, Garner will soon throw his entire system of
contracts with 23 different nonprofit providers out to bid in hopes
of boosting cost-effectiveness.

Superior Court judges are expressing alarm over the plan. They note
its troubling effects on the county's drug courts, which have proved
highly successful in keeping offenders in treatment and reunifying
families when the children of addicts land in foster care. Under
Garner's proposal, all DADS clinicians now working inside the courts
would have their positions eliminated.

Yet there aren't a whole lot of options. By law, the county must
serve addicts who qualify under Proposition 36, the 2000 voter
initiative that funds treatment beds as an alternative to jail.
Garner also has avoided cutting already inadequate services for
addicted teens, and he can't touch federally mandated prevention and
HIV programs.

With those programs off the table, that leaves a $9 million cut to be
made from a $20 million "discretionary" pot.

People likely to be affected can be found throughout Santa Clara
County - like a trio of fathers sharing dinner at a transitional
housing program on a recent weekday in South San Jose.

All three say they grew up in dysfunctional homes and wrestle with
the legacy of lifelong addictions and numerous stints behind bars.
But the juvenile dependency court has given them the chance to keep
their families together, because their children's mothers are even worse off.

As evening approached, one father bundled up his two daughters, 14
and 7, readying them for their weekly therapy session. Thanks to the
yearlong housing program, the former liquor store manager recovering
from a 20-year PCP addiction is amazed at how life can change for the better.

He's learned to cook a mean pot roast at the newly opened home for
single fathers and is exploring a connection with his daughters, whom
he used to feel too ashamed to get close to. For the first time,
there are family homework sessions each night.

Another father, a plumber enjoying his first steady stint of
sobriety, spooned mashed peas into his wiggly 1-year-old's mouth.
Nearby, the father of a girl who had been found living with her mom
in a laundromat proudly served her homemade chicken adobo with rice
and green beans.

The county's newly launched transitional housing program in which
these families have been given a year is now potentially threatened
by the budget cuts. Although by law their identities must remain
confidential, all three men were frank in tearful interviews, saying
had it not been for the county program, their children would probably
be in foster homes or scraping by with them in homeless shelters
ill-suited for kids.

The spacious suburban home is run by Addiction Recovery Homes, a
37-year-old nonprofit agency that is the largest provider of alcohol
and drug treatment in the county. Already, after county supervisors
were forced to make a rare midyear budget reduction, the agency has
had to abruptly halt referrals and shut down one of its 16
transitional housing programs.

The latest cuts could not come at a worse time, with economic stress
compounding existing problems among the county's marginalized
populations and waiting lists already lengthy for the programs that serve them.

"We're concerned, most of all, about the people here having dinner,"
said program director Jeffrey Macredes, motioning to the families
seated near him. For these parents and their children, he said, "this
is where the living starts."