Putnam County races to spend federal funding
An effort by Putnam legislators to preserve federal funds for a nonprofit whose mental-health crisis center has been rejected by Brewster and Carmel now centers on buying a home it rents in Philipstown for people needing respite.
Nancy Montgomery, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley on the Legislature, and its chair, Dan Birmingham, unveiled on Monday (April 27) a proposal to allow People USA to keep $2.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to buy 111 Philipse Brook Road, which is on the market for $1.3 million.
After debating the idea for more than an hour, the Budget and Finance Committee, which includes every legislator, postponed a vote on whether to terminate a contract with People USA to open a 24-hour, drop-in “stabilization” center for people experiencing a mental-health or substance-abuse crisis.
People USA initially planned to lease space above a childcare center in Brewster, but that sparked outrage from residents and led the Town of Southeast to impose a moratorium on permits for medical and mental-health clinics. The nonprofit then tried to open a stabilization center in an office building in Carmel. That provoked similar opposition, and the town’s Planning Board rejected the application.
The two rejections have made it impossible for People USA to spend the money by June 1, which is a provision of the contract, according to Bill Carlin, the county finance commissioner. Because of approaching federal deadlines, he asked the Legislature to divert the funds to paving projects. The county received $19 million in pandemic relief funding; under ARPA rules, money for paving projects must be spent by September and for anything else by Dec. 31.
To replace People USA’s funding, County Executive Kevin Byrne wants to take $2.1 million from Putnam’s savings for mental-health initiatives. But Birmingham said he has “an uncomfortableness with trading human services dollars for blacktop.” And Montgomery said that she has been told by the U.S. Treasury Department that ARPA contracts can be amended.
Revising the People USA contract to specify “stabilization services” instead of a center is “much less risky,” she said, and would preserve an existing service by allowing the nonprofit to buy the Philipstown home. “Once this money disappears from ARPA for public health for People USA, we’re not going to get that money back for stabilization services,” she said.
The Philipstown property is part of People USA’s network of Rose Houses, places of respite “operated by peers who have their own personal lived experiences” with a mental-health crisis. People can stay up to seven days and are free to come and go for jobs and other reasons. Rebecca Valk, a lawyer for People USA, said buying the house would “give us a stronger foot” in Putnam. “We have not found a community that does not seem to be scared of the individuals that we serve,” she said.
People USA said it has received state approval for renovation plans for Philipstown Brook Road. But Valk said that because the organization “would be flowing with the services that are already there” and not building a center like the ones proposed for Brewster and Carmel, no approvals would be needed from Philipstown.
Supervisor John Van Tassel had a different view. He told legislators that he only found out about the proposal less than two hours before the 5:45 p.m. meeting and “was a little disappointed that I wasn’t included in any of the communications.”
Under the town’s zoning code, only single-family homes are permitted in that area, he said. “Whatever is operating there currently, I don’t know if it’s there illegally, but any adaptation to that building would require site plan approval,” he said.
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Type: News
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.