It was just a year ago that the board of Lyon-Martin Health Services suddenly announced that it would close the clinic – without a plan in place to transition its roughly 2,500 clients to other agencies and without notifying public health officials. Thankfully, the community came to the financial rescue, helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Lyon-Martin remains open today as its board and staff works to regroup and stabilize.
Now, Tenderloin Health will be closing, at least according to the agency last week when it issued a press release, "Tenderloin Health Closing Doors Due to Budget Cuts." We've been reporting on the financial troubles of the agency for the last several months so it wasn't surprising. Just like Lyon-Martin's initial reaction, Tenderloin Health has made little effort to communicate with the public and, more importantly, its 3,000 clients. When a reporter stopped by the agency's offices last Thursday, the day the statement was issued, clients did not seem to know what was going on. A week later, the news release is still not posted either on the agency's new or old websites.
That's inexcusable.
It's also unprofessional that Executive Director David Fernandez, who has hung up on a Bay Area Reporter assistant editor twice in recent weeks, continues to dodge answering basic, pertinent questions. Like, what is the plan to transition clients, many of whom have serious health issues, when there is really no other agency quite like Tenderloin Health? Fernandez told us this week that he still hopes to save the agency. Then why did he put out a news release saying it would be closing? The absence of clear answers and communication is confusing people, and the agency and its staff should not be doing that.
The Department of Public Health, which oversees the bulk of Tenderloin Health's contracts, hasn't been forthcoming either. Director Barbara Garcia must have known for months that the agency was in financial crisis. After all, her main job for years was DPH deputy director overseeing the more than 150 local nonprofits and community groups providing health care services funded by the city before assuming the DPH directorship in late 2010. Yet Garcia has been unavailable to answer our questions other than to say that we would get the news release first. Thanks, but what about answers due clients, staff, donors, and taxpayers?
This situation has become more stressful for everyone involved than it needs to be. Health officials and agency staff should have been upfront with the public all along. The agency receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funding, yet it cannot keep its doors open because it lost $500,000 in federal funding. It has about a dozen different contracts with the city, the sheer number of which makes it a complicated project to transfer them to other organizations.
It's clear that the agency was unable to fundraise enough private donations to cover that $500,000 loss, and yet that's what an executive director and board are supposed to do: bring in the money. Government funding should not be the sole source of support for any agency. Republicans in Congress would like nothing better than to cut most federal funding for social programs – they've already cut Ryan White money – and that may become a reality after this year's elections so agencies must offset the loss with private donations.
Tenderloin Health was created as the result of a 2006 merger between the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center and Continuum HIV Day Services. It provides syringe exchange, transgender services, social services, substance abuse and mental health treatment, HIV/AIDS nursing case management, medical and oral health services, housing, and workforce development. All of these vital services must be continued. And the population it serves is among the most vulnerable in the city.
Due to shrinking donations and grants, we've written before in favor of LGBT nonprofits exploring mergers in order to save on overhead and other expenses. But not all mergers are successful. New Leaf: Services for Our Community shut down in 2010. It was created by joining Operation Concern and 18th Street Services. Now, less than two years later, Tenderloin Health is poised to shutter its doors a little over five years after its merger.
Nonprofits need to put their clients first, as Lyon-Martin did last year once the board retreated from its decision to close the clinic and started releasing financial information, resulting in public support. Tenderloin Health, at least from our experience with Fernandez, is not doing that.