SAN ANTONIO -- The state budget crunch hits home, as San Antonio's Haven for Hope braces to lose roughly one-fifth of its funding. The nationally renowned facility for the homeless has only been open for about a year.
Haven for Hope, combined with the "Restoration Center" across the street, where the homeless get help for drug and alcohol abuse, are expected to lose nearly 14-million dollars in state funding. Experts say the effects will be far reaching.
"I was living on the street here in San Antonio," explained Samuel Lott, who is currently living at Haven for Hope and receiving intensive outpatient treatment at the Restoration Center. Up until six months ago, he was addicted to methamphetamines and living on the streets.
"I had lost a good job a few years ago, and I think I got really depressed," explained Lott.
Now, there's a big concern about helping people like Lott. The state budget shortfall will cut 35% of the Restoration Center's funding, and eliminate nearly 300 jobs.
"The chronically and persistently homeless are people with substance abuse problems, and people with severe mental illness," explained Leon Evans, CEO of The Center for Health Care Services.
Evans says cuts to mental health and substance abuse services will end up hurting not only addicts, but also taxpayers.
"These people are going to end up in jail. They're going to end up in emergency rooms. They're going to end up on the streets," said Evans. "And it's going to cost more when these services go away."
To put it in perspective, consider this: It costs about $4,500 to get an addict rehabilitated in the center's 60-day outpatient program. Compare that to the more than $20,000 per year it costs to house one person in jail.
