Mental health providers in Lewiston will receive as much as $12 million in state funding this year. They say it will help stabilize and expand a system that's struggled to meet the demand for services since the pandemic, and has seen the need grow since the mass shootings last fall.
After the shootings, Tri-County Mental Health Services says its waitlist swelled to more than 2,000. By this spring, Tri-County faced a half-million-dollar deficit and possible closure. But an allocation of nearly $2 million in the state budget allowed services to continue, says former Tri-County CEO Catherine Ryder, as the nonprofit was absorbed by the Portland-based behavioral health provider Spurwink.
"And had this joining of our organizations not happened, it would have been literally a tragedy in my mind," Ryder says. "Staff would have been spun off. Clients would have been transferred eventually to some organization but probably splintered across several organizations and disrupted in their care."
Spurwink President and CEO Eric Meyer says the funding coming to Lewiston will help stabilize services and provide quick access to care. A separate allocation of $1.4 million will establish a crisis receiving center. Spurwink runs the state's first crisis receiving center in Portland, which is open 24/7.
"Not just for anybody to walk into, but also in support of law enforcement and the emergency rooms," Meyer says. "For individuals that don't need law enforcement involvement, don't really need medical involvement, but need crisis support in that moment. And it has filled that gap."
St. Mary's Health System is receiving a significant allocation of $8.5 million to plug a hole in recent operating losses. St. Mary's officials didn't respond to repeated requests for interviews, but Democratic state Sen. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston sponsored the legislation to provide them funding.
"There was a concern that this entire area of the state could lose the only inpatient behavioral health service program that we have," Rotundo says.
Some of the funding will also be used to establish a new intensive mental health day program at St. Mary's, which is intended to fill another gap in care.
There was no money in the state budget for the new Resiliency Center in Lewiston. That's because it's funded under a pending federal grant to serve anyone affected by the mass shootings.
Director Danielle Parent says the center offers a variety of free programs, including yoga, tai chi, arts and crafts and, of course, support groups.
"So we move furniture a lot," she says. "We've become pros at moving furniture to accommodate the space for whatever the need of the day is."
Although the federal grant will keep the center open for 27 months, Parent says there are limitations on how federal dollars can be used. Wellness activities like yoga and tai chi aren't covered, even though she says they help get people through the door.
"I think often about what's most successful at the Center for us so far, and that has been largely support groups and one to one support. But not everybody is ready for that," she says. "And so what we find is that people come to activities."
Community Concepts, which operates the Resiliency Center, is planning for a gap in funding, and will seek state funding in the future.
"We're trying to prepare for it," CEO Jim Martin says. "Trying to be very transparent about that, and to talk to folks about additional funding that's going to come to support that gap that that we know is going to be sitting there."
Martin says he'd like to keep the Resiliency Center open beyond 27 months, to serve people affected by the shootings, as well as victims of other trauma.
