El Paso nonprofits that provide mental health care and addiction services were reeling from whiplash after the Trump administration last week abruptly pulled their grants – only to notify them two days later it was rescinding the terminations.
Last year, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, awarded more than $8 million to the University of Texas at El Paso and five local organizations: Emergence Health Network, Aliviane, the El Paso Child Guidance Center, the El Paso Recovery Alliance and Big Brothers Big Sisters of El Paso.
The grants fund programs from on-campus therapy for K-12 students to medication-assisted treatment for people in the criminal justice system.
Many of the programs have several years left of promised funding, but SAMHSA notified organizations Jan. 13 that it can suspend a program if it “no longer effectuates” the agency’s priorities, according to letters provided to El Paso Matters. The letters did not explain why the programs did not align with the federal government’s goals.
“The agency’s priorities are mental health treatment and substance abuse,” said Cathy Gaytan, CEO of El Paso Child Guidance Center. “Well, that is exactly what we do. So the letter itself and the communication was illogical and made no sense.”
The cancellations were effective immediately. Some groups had already begun the process of laying off employees when they received a brief email Jan. 15 from SAMHSA stating, in part, “Please disregard the prior termination notice and continue program activities as outlined in your award agreement.”
In at least one instance, an organization received a separate email the same day saying their grant would end in 30 days, Jan. 13 – a date two days prior, sowing further confusion. Guillermo Valenzuela, chief corporate officer of Aliviane, said he did not know if the emails mean only some of their grants were reinstated or if there was a mistake.
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Valenzuela said the termination devastated him and would not have given Aliviane enough time to discharge clients in a safe way.
“Imagine being discharged from a hospital while you’re receiving treatment and somebody tells you, ‘I’m sorry, you have to leave the hospital because we are closing,’” Valenzuela said. “When? ‘Right now, because the federal notification was given to me yesterday, midnight.’ We would be up in arms in the community if somebody treated a family member receiving health care services in that manner.”
El Paso Matters reached out to SAMHSA for comment, but did not receive a response.
What do SAMHSA grants fund in El Paso?
Aliviane and Emergence Health Network are among the largest grant recipients.
At Aliviane, SAMHSA funds recovery for substance use disorder in people in specialty courts, such as the DWI Drug Court, people experiencing homelessness, adolescents, and women who are pregnant and postpartum.
Emergence Health Network’s grant-funded programs include on-campus mental health clinicians in partnership with El Paso County public school districts and training for first responders on how to use naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication also known as Narcan.
Upon the termination news, Emergence workers began preparations to shuffle clients and clinicians to other areas within the organization to prevent a gap in health care and minimize impact to services, said Rene Hurtado, Emergence Health Network chief of staff.
But for smaller organizations, yanking their funding could threaten their existence, said Juan Perez, Recovery Alliance, which had planned layoffs and leadership pay cuts before the grants were reinstated.
The Alliance operates a drop-in center for opioid users where they can learn about medication-assisted treatment, which combines behavioral therapy with approved drugs to manage opioid withdrawals. The team also helps clients gain employment and financial stability as part of their recovery.
The SAMHSA grant covers the cost for the first four weeks of treatment, including transportation to services, while Aliviane helps cover the cost for any time beyond that. Terminating treatment all of the sudden could cause clients to have withdrawals, Perez said.
“They would go back, get sick and it could lead to death,” Perez said. “We are trying to motivate them in a compassionate way.”
The loss of SAMHSA grants would have also affected mental health services for children. Big Brothers Big Sisters of El Paso received $200,000 this fiscal year to provide mental health first aid training to El Paso schools, business and community organizations.
The El Paso Child Guidance Center is set to receive $1.8 million between now and 2028 to provide trauma and grief-focus therapy treatment to children, teenagers and their families, with a special focus on San Elizario and Clint.
Therapists are available both on school campuses and in clinics. The grant covers the therapists’ time and services are free to families, making mental health care accessible to vulnerable children who have nowhere else to go, Gaytan said.
Funding also makes the educational aspect possible, Gaytan added. That involves care coordinators going into schools and homes to teach skills such as how to manage feelings and how to parent from a nurturing lens. Schools and businesses can request sessions for their employees to learn about how trauma and grief impact children and families. The center has already trained 30 therapists who work with children in El Paso, and planned two more trainings this year about specific treatment for trauma and grief.
Trauma affects children in a variety of ways, Gaytan said. They may feel guilt and sadness, as well as a loss in their sense of safety and control. The difficulties coping can show up as relationship problems with family peers, flashbacks, hypervigilant behavior and poor performance in school. Left untreated, it can escalate to in-patient admission to a psychiatric hospital.
“It’s a complicated problem and the earlier identified and treated, the better the outcome,” Gaytan said. “Prevention is absolutely critical.”
The post How El Paso almost lost millions in federal grants to respond to mental health care, addiction appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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