Mental health agency cutting 30 jobs as it grapples with $2.6M deficit

After posting its first deficit, a publicly funded agency that provides mental health and addiction services in the London region is cutting positions and changing how it delivers some services.

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Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services said Tuesday the organization recorded a $2.6-million shortfall on $52.5 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending March 31.

“We’re open, we’re accessible, and we’re serving the community,” said chief executive Pam Tobin, who took the helm last year. “There may be increased waiting times, we don’t know what that’s going to look like yet, some of the changes that we’ve had to make are pretty new or haven’t been implemented yet.”

The agency will cut 30 full-time positions to balance its books, out of a total of 700 employees, she said. It also slashed its 18-member leadership team nearly in half to 10, will streamline certain programs and change how some services are delivered

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Officials say the deficit underscores the “chronic underfunding” of community-based addiction and mental health treatment, as demand and complexity of service grows.

They’re calling on the provincial government to increase mental health and addictions funding, and encourage community members to advocate for the same. The agency also points out workers in the sector are often paid up to 30 per cent less than other health care workers.

The agency is funded primarily by the Ontario government, with additional contributions from the cities of London and St. Thomas, the surrounding counties, United Way and the London Community Foundation.

The local CMHA chapter did receive a five per cent increase in base funding from the provincial government. Tobin said it was the first time in a decade the agency received more money.

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“While we’re really grateful for that, we have been told that it’s unprecedented and not to expect it again,” she said. “We don’t have our funding envelope for this year yet, but we do not anticipate an increase in our base funding, so year over year this will be a deficit.”

The organization operates crisis teams, case management and counseling, addiction treatment, and housing supports across Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford, and Huron counties. Officials say their work takes pressure off police and emergency rooms.

Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services was formed in 2021 when the Addiction Services of Thames Valley and CMHA chapters in Elgin-Middlesex and Oxford joined together.

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In a typical year, the London-based agency has more than 15,000 in-person clients across its programming, and has more than 1,000 people in supportive housing. Last year, it says it provided almost 20,000 crisis responses and handled more than 43,000 calls to its crisis and support lines.

The agency argues its community-based programming and services take pressure off of first responders as well as the health care sector.

Increasing funding would carry through “the whole continuum of mental health and addiction care,” Tobin said.

She stresses the cuts should have minimal impacts and shouldn’t discourage people from seeking out help.

“Clients are our number 1 priority, and we want to ensure that we’re having a minimal impact on service delivery,” Tobin said.

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The mental health and addictions agency is the latest provincially funded body to face a deficit in the London area, including the Thames Valley District school board and the Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex.

London North Center NDP MPP Terence Kernaghan calls the shortfall a “crisis” of the government’s own making.

Front line service agencies, including in London, have been asking for more funding for years, he said.

“A $2.6-million deficit is really quite disturbing, and the fact that 30 full-time jobs will be lost, this is something that is unacceptable,” Kernaghan said. “Across our city, we see the struggles that people are having with mental health, with homelessness.”

He would like to see the government distribute emergency funding, and to bring in wage parity across health care sectors.

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Referencing the Thames Valley board’s budget deficit brought on partly by unfunded statutory benefit increases, Kernaghan said the provincial government is playing a “shell game.”

“The province has kept its foot on the neck of our public institutions and then has the audacity to ask them why they can’t breathe. They cut, they underfund, they disrespect workers, and it’s something that is simply unacceptable.”

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