{"id":144889,"date":"2025-09-09T20:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T20:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144889\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T20:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T20:25:09","slug":"a-key-santa-cruz-mental-health-service-closed-amid-funding-turmoil-and-months-of-missed-paychecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/144889\/","title":{"rendered":"A key Santa Cruz mental health service closed amid funding turmoil and months of missed paychecks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tQuick Take<\/p>\n

After winning county funding this summer, Santa Cruz\u2019s Mental Health Client Action Network abruptly closed, leaving unpaid staff in crisis as leaders cite financial turmoil, leadership struggles and stalled reimbursements.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The summer started out victorious for the Mental Health Client Action Network. Amid an austere climate for social safety net services, staff and clients of this community-run day center successfully lobbied Santa Cruz County lawmakers to rethink proposed budget cuts<\/a> that would have ended the decades-old program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a painful budget year with few winners, MHCAN won and received more than half a million dollars in funding, which made the news last week that the organization had closed its doors<\/a> all the more surprising.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MHCAN shuttered the week of Aug. 25, but two employees who say they were abruptly furloughed said they haven\u2019t received a paycheck from the organization since July 15. A third employee, who was fired just before the closure, also said they had not been paid since mid-July. They told Lookout the hardships attached to the missed paychecks have become increasingly harsh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MHCAN\u2019s unique contribution to the community was as a peer-run refuge for people, often homeless, struggling with mental health challenges. Self-disclosing a mental illness is a pre-requisite for both clients and staff, which creates a trusting, judgment-free atmosphere that can be hard to come by in more formal social service settings. When budget cuts threatened MHCAN over the summer, staff and people familiar with the services warned it would take away the only place for clients and some staffers to get off the street, and would place this highly vulnerable population at greater risk. Employees who spoke to Lookout say that scenario is now playing out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The furloughed employees, who, like all those employed by MHCAN, have faced challenges with mental health and\/or homelessness, spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to protect their employment should the organization ever reopen. One of the employees said they recently experienced a stroke, and is now facing eviction from their Mid-County apartment.<\/p>\n

\"\"The front door of MHCAN last Friday. Credit: Christopher Neely \/ Lookout Santa Cruz<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been hard,\u201d the employee said. \u201cAt first, we were like, we will give them time to figure it out, but they haven\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other furloughed employee lives in their car, has struggled to afford gasoline and did not have the resources to pay their most recent phone bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no money,\u201d they said. \u201cWe have to figure out how we\u2019re going to eat every day. It\u2019s affecting people\u2019s health, their home, and their livelihood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lookout has reached out to multiple board members and staffers since Friday, but each has declined to comment. MHCAN\u2019s board chair, Danette Lawrence, confirmed to Lookout that she asked the board members<\/a> \u201cnot to speak about this.\u201d Lawrence, who is a volunteer, said she could \u201cneither confirm nor deny any of these stories\u201d from staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have anything to say to employees, I don\u2019t know what to say,\u201d Lawrence said Monday. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen with MHCAN.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawrence said she spent the past few weeks \u201ctrying to figure out what\u2019s going on.\u201d She wouldn\u2019t go into detail about what exactly the organization is facing, but painted a bleak picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not good,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to need a full overhaul and to clean stuff up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

District 3 County Supervisor Justin Cummings told Lookout on Friday that his office was shocked when it learned that MHCAN had closed its doors. He said the organization had run into financial trouble, and the board had voted to fire its executive director, Tyler Starkman.<\/p>\n

According to documents provided to Lookout, the board voted to fire him a week before MHCAN shut its doors, citing \u201cchronic absenteeism,\u201d a lack of \u201corganizational transparency\u201d and failure to provide requested \u201cinvoices and financial documentation,\u201d and a habitual delay in \u201ctimely payment of staff wages.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the documents, Starkman\u2019s firing came one day after he formally requested a 90-day medical leave to attend a detox program. He said he made this request only after receiving assurances from at least one board member that the directors would be supportive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starkman blamed the missed paychecks on county delays in reimbursing the organization\u2019s costs, and onerous reporting requirements placed on the organization in 2024 following an audit \u2014 for fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24, which predate Starkman\u2019s directorship \u2014 that showed inconsistencies between MHCAN\u2019s actual expenses and the amount it was billing the county.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a letter from the county\u2019s health services agency on July 15 \u2014 the last day employees say they received a paycheck \u2014 government officials were still unsatisfied with how MHCAN was reporting its expenses. The county said it would reimburse MHCAN expenses only that provided proper documentation, which had historically been lacking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cInvoices submitted after MHCAN\u2019s receipt of the audit report have not contained any supporting documentation for expenses as recommended in the 2024 audit,\u201d the letter from Dr. Marni Sandoval, county behavioral health director, read. \u201cThis letter serves to officially inform your organization the county will only process payment for invoiced expenses that include sufficient supporting documentation to demonstrate the actual expense amount is the same as invoiced.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an email to Lookout, Starkman said these \u201cinherited compliance obligations\u201d put the organization on precarious financial footing that he worked to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese systemic issues were further compounded by\u201d his firing, \u201cwhich I feel was based upon my request to go to rehab,\u201d Starkman said. \u201cI worked extremely hard to complete my job duties and keep us contracted with the county and we did not close for one day while I was ED. I fear the board\u2019s haste in terminating me without two weeks\u2019 notice or proper transfer of knowledge will lead to more financial woes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrence and Cummings said the organization would meet with city and county officials this week to provide more clarity on the challenges and find solutions for MHCAN to reopen its doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe after all of this MHCAN will be better and stronger than ever,\u201d Lawrence said.<\/p>\n

Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quick Take After winning county funding this summer, Santa Cruz\u2019s Mental Health Client Action Network abruptly closed, leaving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[2420,97,12589,4136,829,259,260,3151],"class_list":{"0":"post-144889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-government","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-homelessness","11":"tag-instagram","12":"tag-latest-news","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-premium"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}