Kandu was a program that taught job skills to people with disabilities and provided them with work opportunities. The Kandu program had been in existence for 62 years, and was started by parents with disabled children. By all accounts, Kandu was a wonderful program.
In 2013, the State of Michigan created the Healthy Michigan Plan (HMP), an insurance plan which provided consumers more direct access to private health care providers, and was easier to navigate than Medicaid. This change resulted in less funding for community mental health (CMH) organizations as funding was given directly to consumers of HMP. One way Community Mental Health Ottawa County (CMHOC) responded to the reduction in funding was by reducing funding to Kandu. CMHOC’s reduction of more than $1,000,000 essentially forced Kandu out of business.
The closing of Kandu was significant in convincing Ottawa County residents to approve a mental health millage and the timing was perfect. Kandu closed its doors on September 30, 2015, and the mental health millage was on the March 2016 ballot. To lobby the community for millage money, CMHOC explained that “critical programming and services to our most vulnerable citizens are being reduced and in some cases discontinued.” Unfortunately, this statement was misleading. Community members assumed that millage money would be used to bring back or fund programs similar to Kandu. The residents did not understand that mental health millage money could not be used for services reimbursable by Medicaid, such as Kandu.
Kandu was largely replaced by the four social recreation programs funded by the mental health millage. Three of the social recreational programs serve primarily senior citizens, adults, and young adults with developmental and learning disabilities. The Momentum Center program is the only one that includes mental illness, drug addiction, and programming for teens. While the Momentum Center offers services to all residents, it is not readily accessible to the Intellectual and Developmentally Disabled (IDD) population because they have to provide their own Community Living Supports (CLS) workers if they require that type of support. In addition, many potential consumers do not support the political activism aspect of the Momentum Center. The following four social recreation programs received funding from the mental health millage in 2023.
Heritage Home Social Rec Program $216,000
IKUS R.E.C. Connect $138,500
Momentum Center $290,800
Pioneer Resources LARC $81,365
After the millage was passed, the community was still being misled by CMHOC. The March 28, 2016, CMHOC Board meeting minutes state, “The mental health millage has passed. Funding received from this millage will enhance services already being provided as well as assist in providing to those in the Ottawa County community who have had difficulty accessing needed services.” Community members who cared about serving vulnerable residents voted to continue funding programs, but did not understand that job skills are reimbursable by Medicaid while social recreation is not. Hence, the social recreation programs received millage funding, while Kandu remained closed.
CMHOC Board Meeting Minutes from February 22, 2016, and November 28, 2016 show how the social recreation programs were created as a substitute for Kandu.
Feb 22. 2016 - CMHOC Board notes
“Work continues on promoting the Mental Health Millage. Ms. Doyle has been meeting with community group to educate the public about the millage. The Friends of CMH are advocating on behalf of the millage.”
“There has been an increase in the number of Medicaid Fair Hearing requests filed, the majority of which are related to the closing of Kandu, which resulted in a gap in the number of contract service providers available to provide those services. Contract providers are engaged in building capacity to provide services that were lost when that facility closed its doors. In response to the increase in requests, CMHOC is developing a stronger advocacy effort within the community.”
November 28, 2016 – CMHOC Board notes
“A request for proposal was issued for social recreation opportunities. These programs are intended to fill the void that was left with the closing of KANDU and the CMHOC CBS programs. Eight proposals were submitted and contracts for those selected will be presented when developed.”
What is more, in the proposal received by CMH from the Momentum Center in November 2016, it stated, “We have been in active conversation with CMH about the Momentum Center for almost a year.” This implies that CMH intended the social recreational programs to be a replacement for Kandu all along.
Kandu is one highly successful Medicaid-funded program that was eliminated, but none of the mental health millage money was used for critical services covered by Medicaid. Instead, the majority of the funding was used for initiatives such as placing community counselors into school buildings, building crisis facilities, paying for staff to help uninsured residents find other community services, funding social recreational programs, and increasing public awareness of mental health issues by creating content for social media.
Kandu was a successful program that many residents depended on for 62 years, and its loss is still felt over eight years later.
The mental health millage is funded from 2016-2026 and the Momentum Center is currently under scrutiny by the CMHOC board because, along with providing a social recreation program, the Momentum Center appears to be a political organization. What if the money going to the Momentum Center could be redirected to a program that fulfilled a more “critical” need in a way that does not involve politics? If you have any ideas, I’m sure the CMHOC board would love for you to present them during public comment.