Group home for troubled foster kids shutting down in Sonoma County

After 45 years in operation, Sonoma County's only group home for foster kids who struggle with both mental illness and drug abuse is shutting its doors.

The group home, known as R House, is being forced to close because of $250,000 in losses stemming from costly upgrades and other changes designed to meet new state requirements, program officials said.

Sweeping reforms to the state's foster care system call for long-term group homes to transform into short-term, therapeutic facilities or shut down. R House made those changes and has been operating under the new model since January, but the state will not increase its funding for the program at the new, higher reimbursement rate offered to such facilities until it is certified - a process that could take two to three months.

The decision to close the Santa Rosa program will displace roughly 40 staffers and a dozen residents, R House director Sylvie Vatinelle said.

R House is the only group home in the region that houses “dual-diagnosis” kids, those with both a mental illness and drug addiction, the most troubled and most difficult to place in a family setting. When R House closes, these kids will have nowhere else to go in the North Coast, Vatinelle said.

“These kids need this help. There isn't anywhere else for them to go,” Vatinelle said.

R House, which is run as a subsidiary of nonprofit California Human Development, consists of two residential sites and a school, the Abraxis Charter School. All three sites are closing.

Staff will continue working for about two weeks until placements are found for the remaining residents. Some may have to be sent out of state because there are so few facilities in California that provide such a high level of treatment.

The foster care system serves children removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.

The overhaul of the system, known as the Continuum of Care Reform, or CCR, is aimed at dramatically scaling back group home placements while increasing the use of home-based family care.

The effort began about five years ago when state officials and county welfare directors began working on a statutory and policy framework to overhaul placement and treatment options for foster youth.

That led to state legislation, AB 403, which was signed last fall by Gov. Jerry Brown and began phasing in changes at the start of this year.

Jay Takacs, secretary of the R House board of directors, said R House made costly changes to the program at the beginning of the year because he and others were led to believe the state would retroactively reimburse the program once it received certification as a short-term residential therapeutic program.

For example, R House increased wages to recruit staff with proper credentials to meet the new requirements, Vatinelle said.

The state notified R House last month it would not reimburse the program retroactively, Takacs said.

By becoming a short-term residential therapeutic program, R House expected it would receive $12,000 a month for each youth in its care. But without the proper certification, it was reimbursed $9,000 a month for each teen it served.

Its financial woes were compounded by a dramatic decrease in the number of children referred to the program by the county probation department. Two years ago, R House served 22 children a day, on average. Today, it houses 10 to 12 youths a day, Vatinelle said.

The lower reimbursement rate and the lower daily census have crippled the program, Takacs said. Expenses have outpaced revenues for a current loss of $250,000, he said.

“We were forced into a position by the state where we can't sustain cash flow,” he said.

“We had no choice but to shut down, and it's completely heartbreaking.”

Michael Weston, a spokesman for the state Department of Social Services, confirmed that R House was being reimbursed under the old model.

The program had not yet received certification as a short-term therapeutic facility, although it could have gotten a two-year extension to operate under the old model, he said.

R House applied for certification as a short-term therapeutic facility on April 11, Weston said. It typically takes 60 to 90 days for the Department of Social Services to process an application, he said. On April 22, R House representatives notified the state they would be closing the program, he said.

There is no retroactive reimbursement for group homes trying to convert to short-term therapeutic facilities, Weston said.

Under the old group home model, R House relied heavily on referrals from the county probation department. Such referrals were court-ordered and kids had to stick with the program to complete their sentences.

David Koch, Sonoma County's chief probation officer, said his department has been referring fewer kids to group homes for several years, even before the CCR changes.

He said his department is using more intensive in-home support services that enable kids on probation to stay with their families

But he said the most troubled kids will be left without a short-term therapeutic facility in the county.

“I think it is unfortunate that R House is closing. For certain youth, they fill an important niche,” Koch said.

“Absent that being in the county, we'll have to look at resources outside the county.”

Takacs said there is very little that can be done to keep the program running, short of a half-million dollar donation.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.