Rural safety net disappearing in wake of funding denial
Friday, May 14, 2010 at 8:17 am
- 32 Comments
Photo: USDA NCRS
For the past several years some U.S. farmers have been lucky enough to live in a state where help with financial or emotional issues was only a phone call away, but it seems their luck is about to change.
“There are no further funds to continue our operations, and the existence of the helpline is very, very tenuous at this point,” said Charlie Griffin, project director of the Kansas Rural Family Helpline.
The few hotlines sprinkled throughout the nation were hopeful that the services they provided, especially in terms of behavioral health, had finally been given a place of prominence within the fabric of American agriculture when language in the 2008 Farm Bill established a national program. Yet, during the appropriations process following passage of the Farm Bill, Congress failed to provide any funding for the new program it had created.
The Kansas program, which is one of seven in the Midwest under the umbrella of Iowa-based AgriWellness, offers a statewide hotline staffed by individuals who have specific experience and/or training to help rural residents and agricultural producers through a wide-array of stressful situations. Callers, according to Griffin, are often people who have been successfully treading water until one event or incident results in a breakdown of their ability to continue. No matter what caused the upheaval, however, hotline staff members work to connect the callers to resources that they need.
“It is important to understand that behavioral health problems for people in agriculture come wrapped up with other life problems,” Griffin explained. “Most of the time those are financial programs. In many cases there is an agricultural operation that is struggling, and people trying to figure out how to manage debt loads, loan payments or medical expenses.”
Hotline staff members are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Many have built personal and trusting relationships with the rural communities and residents they serve.
“That’s a key thing,” said Fran Lyon-Dugin, director of finance and business development at the Richfield-based Crisis Connection. “In rural America, it is all about relationships — who you know and who you feel comfortable with and who you trust. There is already such a big stigma around mental illness. So, taking away the people that have forged these relationships can be really devastating. When the network or hotline goes away, so do the faces and voices that you trust.”
What compounds the problem is that the hotlines are experiencing increased activity for a wide variety of reasons ranging from low milk prices being paid to dairy producers to colder-than-expected weather conditions that may require crop farmers to replant.
“We received about 10,000 calls per year — and about 20 percent of those were suicide-related,” said Susan Helgeland, executive director of Mental Health Association in North Dakota. “Another important thing, at least in North Dakota, is that we are servicing members of the military who are returning to rural areas from Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a national hotline through the Veterans’ Department, but our number, 2-1-1, is much easier to remember in a time of crisis, and our workers were specifically trained to hone in on the unique needs of rural populations.”
The North Dakota hotline, which has been in existence since 1969, nearly became the first victim of the funding crisis. Helgeland’s agency could no longer afford to operate it and was considering closing it. Another agency, First Link, which had been serving a much smaller area, agreed to keep the statewide hotline active — but there are no guarantees past 2010, unless the agency can obtain sustainable funding.
Barring a funding miracle, it now appears extremely likely that the Kansas program will be the first to close its doors. Griffin reports that the hotline currently receives between two and four calls each day. How rural Kansas residents will connect with resources if that happens remains to be seen.
“We often get calls from people who say, ‘I just don’t know where to turn.’ We help them search — with a lot of knowledge and experience about how to target that search — for the resources they most need that day,” Griffin explained. “Some people can do that type of searching on their own, but others aren’t too good at it. Often, in the midst of a crisis, thinking isn’t as clear and time is limited. Also, I don’t know many groups that work with the type of broad understanding of agricultural needs and agricultural resources that we’ve developed here over the years.”
Helgeland minces few words when she describes what will happen to rural residents if the hotlines close: “People will die. That is the bottom line — people will die. They will not get that two-in-the-morning chance to call someone and say that they are thinking about committing suicide. There won’t be an intervention.”
Funding crisis and rural deaths could have been prevented
Congress authorized, but did not fund, the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network as a part of the 2008 Farm Bill. The new line item calls for the creation of a national crisis hotline for rural workers and additional behavioral health services in geographically rural regions. While some states, like Iowa, have existing statewide hotlines and some capacity to provide behavioral health services to rural residents, others currently have none.
After the program was authorized, Pres. Barack Obama recommended that it initially be given a $5 million appropriation by Congress — less than .1 percent of the nearly $24 billion that was eventually appropriated by the U.S. Senate. Neither the U.S. House or Senate, however, approved any funding for the new program.
“I worked to try to obtain the funding,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA, during a conference call with reporters Thursday. “The Agriculture Appropriations Committee, Sen. [Herb] Kohl [a Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the committee] and others decided not to fund it. I’ve submitted the request again, but I can’t make any guarantees.”
A spokeswoman in Kohl’s office said Wednesday that funding for the program remained under consideration, but could not provide a timeline of when the chairman expected to announce a draft appropriations bill to the committee. Harkin has pledged to continue to seek funding for the program as a part of fiscal year 2011 appropriations bill, but no other member of the U.S. Senate subcommittee tasked with crafting the bill — including ranking member Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas — answered a query about the program.
Even if Congress now funds the program, however, it will likely be too late to save the Kansas and North Dakota hotlines. It is quite possible that, absent a nearly immediate infusion of taxpayer or private funding, more of the programs under the AgriWellness umbrella will also face closing.
“The entire AgriWellness coalition is in dire need of funding,” said Lyon-Dugin.
While each state has its own specific partnerships and concerns, all have been hard hit by both a lack of taxpayer funds from the state and federal levels and economically-strapped nonprofits.
“It’s obvious that funding sources at the federal level are very tight,” Griffin said. “The state is not in a position, due to their own fiscal concerns, to bring in or initiate new programs. All state-funding programs are under the gun at this time. From what I’ve seen in this state — and I’m guessing it is the same throughout the nation — nonprofits are also strapped. Tax-base funded programs as well as nonprofit, community-based programs are all struggling to keep up with needs during a time of reduced income.”
The costs associated with running a statewide hotline are not negligible, nor are they excessively absorbent. Staff must be paid and trained. Many go through rigorous accreditation programs such as those offered by the American Association of Suicidology or the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems. Of course, there are utility and phone expenses as well. Griffin estimates that the Kansas program requires $200,000 each fiscal year.
“We are the safety net. Rural suicides, according to some statistics, happen at more than twice the rate of urban suicides,” said Lyon-Dugin. “If there is no one for those in need to call … well, I guess there are local or county health departments or emergency rooms, but, as we know, those are overwhelmed as well. It is really difficult to identify who people would go to if we weren’t here.”
Peter Scheffert leads the Ag Development & Financial Assistance Division at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, which partners with Crisis Connection as a part of the Minnesota Farmer Assistance Network.
“Farmers are wonderful people,” Scheffert said. “One of their strengths is that they are strong, independent people, and one of their weaknesses is that they are strong, independent people. When they do need help, they aren’t as apt to go out and look for it or take advantage of it either. … There is a strong need for [this service]. In agriculture, we often focus on facts and figures or numbers and production, and we haven’t done as well in dealing with the people-side of it, and especially in terms of mental health needs.”
Getting the authorization within the 2008 Farm Bill was significant, and no one involved in providing such services will downplay the importance of just having federal officials take note of these needs within rural America. All, however, are just as quick to point to remaining, unfinished business before Congress.
“Finally there has been recognition within the Farm Bill that this is a need, but we have to do more than just recognize,” Helgeland said. “We need to fund it
32 Comments
Comment posted May 14, 2010 @ 1:06 pm
Government can do it.
They can’t run a train on time, can’t keep banks under control, can’t keep illegal aliens out of the country, can’t deliver mail, but they can DO this.
I can just FEEL it.
Farmers would more likey not commit suicide if the government “helpers” would just quit helping!!! I believe the farmers have had just about all the “help” they can stomach as they reach for the barrel of a guage.
LIBERTY!
FREEDOM!
Get the governmetn OUT of farming. It has no business in anyones business. Farmers should have the right to be left the hell alone, to grow their crops without all the mind numbing rules, all the brain dead helpers.
Comment posted May 14, 2010 @ 3:33 pm
This looks like a proper candidate for earmarks. Eminently useful without being very expensive.
America needs its farming communities, yet by free-market measures servicing rural America is not cost-effective.
The lower population means limited profit potential while a dispersed population means greater cost. Transportation, modern communications, everything becomes more problematic. Attracting doctors is already a problem.
If these programs can help slow the decline of rural America, they are well worth the price.
Comment posted May 14, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
Another example of government pissing away money. They have no business taking taxpayer dollars and funding this sort of thing. Shame an them.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 9:41 am
I grew up in a small town, and spent a lot of time on different farms and even helped with field work and milking cows so I can relate to what was discussed in this article.
I also knew a good, gentle man who had a small farm, who came into town twice a day to have something to eat and to visit with townsfolk. I helped him bale hay one hot, summer day; boy, didn’t ice-cold water ever taste so good – we couldn’t get enough of it!
I still remember the shock and great sadness when he shot his head off, no doubt feeling overwhelmed and not knowing what to do when he found out he had cancer.
Given this, I have but utter contempt for gws and Jimmy who know not what they are ranting about.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 11:38 am
I grew up farming wheat, barley, and sunflowers. My father lost his farm in the late 80′s. He dug in his heels, worked his ass off, and managed to scrape out a livable retirement.
What’s next, a plumber’s hotline? Accountant’s hotline? Such things are for charity and churches. It’s not the business of government, especially with extorted tax dollars.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 11:56 am
Jimmy, I suppose you got cancer and dug in your heels, too …
I am sure you must remember that losing the farm was not an easy time for your father, that he went through a lot of stress and emotions …
Money is but a tool; that’s all it is. It does not buy happiness, and no, you can’t take it with you to heaven …
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
My dad got cancer too and yes he dug in his heels.
Of course it was difficult for him as with any farmer or any other profession. When most people face financial problems they get depressed, they fight it, and they beat it. Of course I hope there are resources for people suffering mental problems.
But extorting money from one group to help another is just evil. Money is not just a tool, it is a symbol of hard human effort. Taking someone’s effort by force is slavery.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
Curious, Jimmy. When your dad farmed, did he participate in any of the myriad government programs for the farmers such as subsidies, pay-not-to-farm-for-whatever-reason, conservation, crop insurance, etc. etc. etc.?
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
In fact, he left a very successful business career in the early 70′s to become a farmer because the government was offering loans to get people started. Raised on a farm, it was very attractive to him.
Then, due to government mismanagement, grain prices fell, fuel prices surged, and interest rates went through the roof. The government’s solution was to lend the failing farmers more money. And more money.
Predictably, the debts mushroomed, and bankruptcy ensued. So thanks to farming subsidies my dad wasted 20 years and endured hard financial failure. Like many farmers he’d prefer to see the government get out of farming entirely.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 5:52 pm
Government mismanagement? What about the laws of supply and demand, oil politics and the banks/Wall Street?
Government in the lending business?
All this are besides the point of this article in that the various helplines receive thousands and thousands of calls both from rural residents and agricultural producers with a high percentage suicide-related. How does FOX talking points help address this huge need for mental health services including crisis intervention?
I don’t see churches and charities/United Way stepping up to the plate on this issue.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
The government wanted an inexpensive food supply, so crop prices were kept low by encouraging farmers to grow using various subsidies. Around 1970 US oil production fell permanently and OPEC put an embargo on oil, for a time. Both of these resulted in higher fuel costs. The Carter administration mandated a grain embargo to the USSR creating a glut of American grain, so prices fell.
So government intervention has created a lot of pain for farmers. But farmers, like all other professions, suffer distress in poor economic times, and a great many rely on Church and family for support.
But not only is it not the government’s role to provide mental health services, but when they do I’ll warrant they do a piss poor job of it. Budgets will be squandered to the administrator’s friend’s training firm no doubt begun simply to milk the free public money.
Comment posted May 15, 2010 @ 10:54 pm
That was decades ago. I lived through those times; however, times have changed. I prefer to deal with the present.
As for squandered budgets, that’s why we have auditors. And we do catch fraud now and then.
I doubt anyone is at the church office to take that phone call at two o’clock in the morning …
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 11:10 am
Most farmers live near or in small towns. They wouldn’t call the Church office at 2AM, they’d call the pastor himself. And he would answer I’ll bet.
When you’re spending other people’s money, just about everything sounds like a good idea. Perhaps if you started recognizing rights of property, less farmers would feel the need to exit the planet.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 11:33 am
Jimmy/Rudy/Raymond: For the umpteenth time, our comment policy clearly states one email or IP address per user. Stick with one e-mail address if you want to keep commenting. Thanks.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 11:52 am
The form clearly says my “mail” will not be published, yet you’ve now shared private information. BTW, thanks for not deleting my recent posts because they disagreed with your political viewpoints.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
I haven’t deleted anything of yours, nor have I revealed your email address. Follow the policy and you’re set.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 3:58 pm
Jimmy do you have any clue who this “government” is? Lincoln said it best just after the civil war. “… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Think about that.
The Government is US. If its not working its because fools keep electing peope who don’t believe in government. St. Ronny Reagan is an perfect example. He said government was not the solution it was the problem, while he was the HEAD of that government. Would you hire a person to run your company who doesn’t beleive in your company? If you did you’d be a fool. So why do you keep electing people who don’t believe in government, because you are a…?
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
The government sure ain’t me. What crappy candidates I do vote for hardly ever win. Democracy fails if the electorate is woefully ignorant and/or the majority is voting to live off of the rest. I’m not so sure Lincoln would be very impressed with the resurgence of slavery after all his efforts to defeat it.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 7:42 pm
Jimmy –
Is the government Rudy or Raymond?
Just wondering
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 8:33 pm
The government is everyone but you Thomas. After 1913 it was every man for himself. “He’s not paying his fair share.” He can afford it, let’s take his money. The farmers need a suicide hotline, and damnit he’s gonna pay for it, selfish bastard that he is.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 9:16 pm
Jimmy your comments aren’t making any sense. Slavery? How so? Because you have to pay taxes? I suppose you don’t drive on the roads, will not call the fire department or the police, or not ever use the court system, didn’t need the government to file title on your house, without that anyone could claim it as thiers, you know that, right? Government does that. Do you drink clean water? Does the food you eat make you sick? Have you ever visited a park, I am sure you haven’t been to a library and maybe the public education you recieved wasn’t top notch, but if you did education your self about what government is for, and I don’t mean the Glenn Beck version, but really protecting the commons and making sure that we all get a fair shake in life, you might be better off. You might also want to stop dwelling on what everyone else is getting and appriciate what it is that you have. If you don’t like it I can suggest some low tax “Paradises” that you can go to. Electricity may not be dependable, water spotty and not drinkable, roads rough, cops corrupt, but little or no tax burderden and all the freeloaders are where the belong. Starving in the streets. After a while you don’t feel too bad about stepping over them. With low services its sometimes difficult to get their bodies out of the street in front of your house, but eventually they are removed. Most often before they start to liquify. Really I don’t understand the Conservative hatred of America, but I is because you all don’t appreciate what you have.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
We are the “land of the free” so you can take your socialist bumm to Europe and enjoy all the services you love. The capitalism that the Founders defined provides free enterprise for water and roads and plentiful food for everyone. You suck wealth from the working class for your parks and gold plated education system while farmers and all other productive citizens shoot their head off going bankrupt paying for your humanitarian indulgences.
You want a park, pay for it yourself.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 9:48 pm
I wonder if it’s every occurred to Jimmy through the choking smog of his libertarian dogmas to consider how poorly the US is performing on a wide range of social indicators and that this is strongly correlated with our inequality and our over-reliance on free market solutions.
Shouldn’t any economic policy or system be subservient to human need? Isn’t the central rationale for capitalism the belief that minimal government and maximally free markets are the best guarantee of human prosperity?
What happens though when the economic libertarian faith comes up short of evidence, as it’s doing now pervasively? What happens when our blind faith in markets means that we have low social mobility relative to the (gasp) more socialist European countries? Or that Americans tend to suffer from more illness than people in Europe? Or that our homicide rate is through the roof compared with many countries? That we have the high levels of mental illness compared with Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.? Or that our life expectancy is relatively low? Etc., etc.
I doubt Jimmy is concerned with such complicating statistics. He appears to believe that holding a dogmatic black and white worldview is somehow a powerful thing, that it gives him special insight that others don’t have, and that he has it all figured out even before the questions are asked.
This brand of True Believer libertarianism is understandable in freshman and sophomore dorm rooms, but is bizarre and embarrassing in anyone out of their early twenties.
Comment posted May 16, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
If Europe is such a Utopia by all means get your butt over there. I’ve been there many times and it’s like a cold gray dead corpse of a society easily predicted by their disgust for liberty and human achievement. Marxist ideals are ingrained in Europe, and the same disease that destroyed the USSR is rotting their flesh slowly but surely.
Your life expectancy statistics are compiled by UN whores that exaggerate the efficacy of socialized medicine and conveniently overlook the impact of genetic factors. Fact is capitalism and its GREED have dragged the first world out of self sustaining agriculture and 50 year lifespans into the otherwise unattainable future we’ve inherited. Please don’t piss it away.
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 12:18 am
“…their disgust for liberty and human achievement.” These are crazy exaggerations and generalizations, not serious observations. You don’t suppose for a second, do you, that your perception is the least bit colored by confirmation and selection bias?
Do you even have any idea of what your phrase actually means in reality?
Are you referring to the spartan vacation time Americans typically have? Might this not have a connection to our higher rates of mental illness?
Are you even asking these questions?
Many Europeans countries have been outperforming us in productivity for years. Is this the “human achievement” to which you refer?
What about the fact that there are more small businesses in the EU versus the US or that they employ more people there than do ours here? And they provide longer parental leave with more pay. My gosh, that socialism is just awful!
Europe may be outpacing us in physics due to our foolish cancellation of the socialist particle collider in Texas, only to have CERN build the Large Hadron Collider, to which all sorts of top physics and engineering talent is now heading. We decided this was too expensive for our country, only to find a loss to our ability to attract talent–which does trivial things like win Nobels and patents, start businesses, give us competitive advantage, etc.
Press freedom, infant mortality, life expectancy, carbon/resource footprint, and on and on–the US is well behind many other countries.
Are you aware that other countries are beating us to the renewable energy punch? Or that more energy efficient transportation systems are cropping up everywhere else and not here?
Out of socialism came the basic structure of the internet. We used to have a lead in this, but now we pay much more for communications services for less speed than many other countries. How is the magical market not correcting this?
Federal government (i.e., socialist) investment in basic R&D has been in decline. Could this have anything to do with the increasing foreign share of patent applications here? Of course not, since libertarians know *a priori*, that only the market will save us!
“UN whores”? Do you have any idea of what you’re talking about? “…the impact of genetic factors”? You’re serious? Where have most of our immigrants come from over the past 200+ years? China?
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 12:45 am
You must be an academic, praising the virtues of Hadron. Project X will probably yield little useful physics theory, and more likely produce a black whole that destroys our planet, if it produces anything interesting at all.
The small businesses created in Europe are the countless gyro shops popping up like zits. Entrepreneurism is DEAD in Europe as it will be soon in the US. Asia, including “Red” China, is adopting capitalism and their standard of living is surging.
Other countries are pissing away money on “Renewable Energy” schemes that will NEVER approach oil and nuclear. Even entrepreneurial concerns know this, they’re just lining their pockets with stolen taxpayer dollars. When the subsidies stop, they’ll close up shop.
The internet was designed by the military and implemented by defense industry capitalists. It was taken up by capitalist communication firms that invested private money to build the massive infrastructure we enjoy today.
>>>> “UN whores”?
Yes, UN WHORES! They get paid for their leftist praises and as such they are worthless.
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 1:05 am
Feeling a little constipated these days, aren’t you, Jimmy/Rudy/Raymond?
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 7:32 am
I believe Jimmy gets confused and flustered – I’m sure it’s challenging never knowing which of your personalities (3 that we know of) is in charge.
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 9:58 am
Typical heartless leftists, making light of someone’s medical challenges. Shame shame.
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 10:15 am
If we had proper health care you could get those issues taken care of
Comment posted May 17, 2010 @ 10:37 am
Right. So socialized medicine will cure all disease and double lifespans, right? Only in your dreams.
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