LOCAL ADDICTIONS PROGRAMS BADLY UNDERFUNDED DIRECTOR

Help for addicts in Leeds-Grenville remains woefully underfunded, says
David North, executive director of Tricounty Addiction Services.

Yet the agency is caught in a catch-22, said North. It would love to prove
it needs more money, but can't get the funding from the province to pay for
a study needed to help secure a larger budget from the Ministry of Health.

The agency has an annual budget of about $762,000, with $670,000 spent on
substance-abuse programs and $90,000 on concurrent disorder programs.

"The request I made was for $1.6 million (annually) that I say we must
have, and they're just laughing at me," said North with a grin about
ministry officials.

However, he says the money is needed to expand the agency's staff.
Currently, the program has about 12 full-time equivalents, including eight
councillors.

North wants to boost his agency's complement to 20 with 16 councillors.

"Basically, what's happening now is that I have a two-month waiting list
for the clients I have and I simply can't get to the places I need to go,"
said North.

The agency can't set up satellite offices in rural communities to serve
customers in the country who may not have access to vehicles to get to
places like Brockville.

And with one of the satellite offices it has set up, it has been months
late on its rental payments because promised provincial funding was lagging.

In March, the agency finally received $20,400 in funding to help pay the
rent at the agency's gambling addictions office set up in Gananoque a year
earlier to provide services to problem gamblers.

"Basically, the problem is that for the province, the funding is set up for
an urban model."

And the agency has no youth outreach program to help young addicts dealing
with either personal or family addiction problems that may be affecting lives.

"Youth really do need a different type of program," he said.

"They don't come up and wait politely at the door for two months until I
can get them help."

And with new youth justice legislation that directs the courts to keep
youth out of incarceration in favour of counselling and rehabilitation, he
doesn't know how he's going cope, he said.

Currently, the service has eight councillors for the entire tri-counties
population and they're dealing with a variety of problems.

North says more could help him offer specialized services for children,
women, gamblers and others with unique problems.

They handle a caseload of about 1,100-1,200 annually, with about 750 new
referrals a year.

However, even if he gained approval to hire new workers, he would have a
hard time attracting them because of the comparatively low salaries he
pays, he said.

His budget is strained because of the need to increase payment for current
staff through pay equity for which his agency never received a funding
increase.

The agency has been struggling to live up to a pay equity ruling from 1994.

The pay equity plan set for addiction counsellors says top wages should be
up to about $49,000 for addiction counsellors.

Currently, they are only able to pay $42,000, he said.

That rate is about $5,000-$10,000 less than paid through similar positions
in the mental health sector at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital site of
the Royal Ottawa Hospital Group.

"What I'm able to do is attract people who have passion and good brains but
are still relatively new in the business," he said.

Tanya Cholakov, a spokesman with the Ministry of Health, says the province
is spending significant amounts on addiction programs.

The Ministry of Health budget on mental health alone is $2.8 billion annually.

This includes community-based services such as drug programs and addiction
services.

She also said the province has made money available for gambling addiction
services.

In 1999, the Conservative government designated two per cent of all gross
revenues from slot machines in charity casinos and race tracks to expand
existing problem gambling programs.

"The government is quite serious about addressing the problem gambling
situation," she said.

The plan has generated $29.1 million for gambling addiction and associated
programs for the fiscal year 2002-2003.