BY ALEX CANTATORE
Staff Reporter
While the State of California enters the eleventh week of this year’s budget crisis, the repercussions of a state trying to operate without funding have begun to hit home here in Turlock. Verda’s House, a Children’s Crisis Center of Stanislaus County emergency shelter for at-risk youth from birth to age 17 located in Turlock, was forced to close its doors earlier this month without the funding to keep it afloat.
“This has everything to do with the state budget impasse,” said Colleen Garcia, Executive Director of Children’s Crisis Center of Stanislaus County. “If not for (the impasse) we would be open and fully operational.”
A state contract accounts for approximately 60 percent of the CCC’s income, while the remaining 40 percent is made up of charitable giving. The CCC contract with the state is not slated for any reductions or cuts in the proposed budget, but until a budget is passed all state funds have been frozen.
While Verda’s House will be able to reopen soon after a new budget passes, in the short term 28 at-risk children are without care each day in the Turlock area alone. In 2006, CCC’s five houses served more than 6,000 children countywide.
“What’s really unfortunate is that the children we serve are children in imminent danger,” Garcia said. “These are high-risk, extremely vulnerable children who need our services, and we are fully prepared to care for them.”
The state currently owes CCC more than $200,000, which they expect to receive after the budget is passed. Even if a budget passes tomorrow, however, it could be up to a month before CCC receives the first state checks of the new fiscal year and is able to reopen.
In the course of the past 11 weeks without state funding, the CCC has already been forced to lay off about 60 percent of their 112 person paid staff. Many of those let go were highly-skilled employees with credentials in early childhood education who have already found permanent positions elsewhere, leaving the CCC in a difficult position once those new funds finally come in.
“As far as hiring and recruiting, we already have someone in our office who is talking with Modesto Junior College and California State University, Stanislaus to see if we have some students getting their credentials who are looking for employment,” Garcia said. “It’s hard to hire someone when we can’t immediately start them working, though.”
Even though CCC has been in existence since 1980 and weathered several budget crises, Garcia says it’s never been this bad before.
In the past, CCC was able to remain open through slim times by way of loans leveraged against property they own in Modesto. Through this line of credit, Verda’s House was able to remain open for most of July this year, but eventually the costs piled up and, with the amount of debt they have incurred, CCC has been forced to rely upon charitable contributions at this point.
“We got the Oakdale site and one of the Modesto sites back open with the help of a coalition of individuals from the community,” Garcia said. “In order to get Verda’s House back open we need $20,000.”
According to Garcia, that funding can come in either in the form of a direct cash contribution or a short-term, interest-free loan that could be repaid as soon as the budget crisis ends. It was such a loan, offered by a group of concerned individuals in Modesto that allowed CCC to reopen the third of their five locations just over a week ago.
Should a coalition of Turlockers come up with the $20,000 needed to fund Verda’s House, Garcia says the site could be open within a few days.
“We would have to hire a couple off new staff, but with staff we have we’d be able to go immediately. For one of our Modesto sites, two days after receiving funding we were able to contact families and tell them our doors are now open to be able to receive your children.”
However, while Verda’s House remains closed, the CCC attempts to make due with their skeleton staff. Employees remain in contact with parents and attempt to offer safe havens for the children, going as far as to bus some to the Oakdale house, but that site is already packed with children from Oakdale, Riverbank, and Ripon who are in need.
The sad truth is that CCC can simply not assist the same number of children with three sites as they can with five.
“These children are not being protected,” Garcia said. “Many, many of these children actually have open Child Protective Services cases already, and the county relies on (CCC) to monitor children to make sure they stay safe, so they’re not being monitored. They rely on us to be their eyes and ears.”
As the CCC continues to pursue local funding, the staff is acutely aware of the need to reopen as soon as possible.
The CCC is in the process of navigating the appropriate legal and political channels to unfreeze funding, through both lobbying of state and local politicians and a formal appeal to the state based on the critical need of their services. That appeal, part of a health and safety statute that allows states to release funds, was submitted to a contact at the Governor’s office more than a week ago.
“We haven’t heard anything yet,” Garcia said. “If any of your readers have a contact on the state level they think we should talk to, I’d love to hear from them.”
To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.
Originally published in the Turlock Journal 8/20/2008.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.