
{"id":7052,"date":"2009-09-10T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T19:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=7052"},"modified":"2009-09-10T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T19:36:08","slug":"club-nova-faces-immediate-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/09\/10\/club-nova-faces-immediate-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Club Nova faces immediate challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>North Carolina Speaker of the House Joe Hackney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wednesday morning visit to Club Nova in Carrboro was a social call, a stop-in by invitation of club members to hear how things are going. Not that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already aware, but what Hackney heard was that Club Nova faces some tenuous times in the immediate future, and that it soon may have to turn out some clients with no alternative services in sight.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Club Nova operates under a clubhouse model designed to promote rehabilitation and reintegration into the community for individuals living with mental illness. In the best of times, it struggles financially to get by. But with the cuts made to mental health services in the new state budget, times are growing harder still.<\/p>\n<p>In 2006, clubhouse services were reclassified as enhanced services, which means that for Club Nova to continue to receive state and federal funding its members are required to receive community support services. But the new state budget called for the phasing out of community support services by June of next year. These services include assistance with such everyday activities as paying bills, shopping for groceries and picking up medications.<\/p>\n<p>This leaves Club Nova in a predicament. Club director Karen Dunn said that two steering commitees comprised of state officials and other stakeholders are trying to develop a plan that may help keep people in clubhouses such as Club Nova. But nothing is known for certain. And if a solution isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t found, Dunn will have to begin discharging clients in December.<\/p>\n<p>Hackney expressed his support for Club Nova. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great program,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The staff is very committed and is dedicated to getting through this difficult period\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hopeful they can survive this and come out the other side so we can get them properly funded, because they certainly aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Club Nova has been allocated $99,000 in the state budget, but Dunn isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t counting that money until it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in hand. She received $75,000 for the coming year from Orange County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s human services grant and $100,000 through the county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mental health local management entity, the latter having been cut 50 percent from last year. The club has been bringing in between $90,000 and $140,000 in private funds, but, as Dunn points out, those dollars are more difficult to come by these days.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dunn said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty amazing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just been an ongoing onslaught of bad news.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The decision to eliminate community support services baffles her.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I understand that North Carolina is short on revenues, but what I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand is why they would dismantle something when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing in its place for people with mental illness,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>She points out that when mental health care reform legislation was passed in 2001, community-based services were seen as the linchpin by which those with mental illness could be moved out of state institutions and reintegrated into their communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Now they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the worst thing in the world?&#8230;<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How could we be that wrong? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Taylor Sisk Staff Writer North Carolina Speaker of the House Joe Hackney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wednesday morning visit to Club Nova in Carrboro was a social call, a stop-in by invitation of club members to hear how things are going. Not that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already aware, but what Hackney heard was that Club Nova faces some tenuous&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7053,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7052\/revisions\/7053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}