The Center for Human Development runs about 70 umbrella programs, some at a surplus and others at a deficit. President and CEO James Goodwin said one of his roles is to keep it all on an even keel.
SPRINGFIELD – Walk through the doors of the Hawthorn Adult Day Health center on State Street and there is evidence of youthful pleasures: karaoke, art projects, Wii bowling and balloon volleyball.
Astlene Nelson, 42 - hardly a senior, but blind, and physically and mentally disabled - belts out a rendition of “You Light up My Life” in one room. It’s a crowd favorite and a reminder of her childhood.
“I remember when I was small, I used to sing in the choir,” said Nelson, who lost her vision when she was 10, has been diagnosed as mildly mentally retarded and walks with a cane. She is among nearly 50 (mostly elderly) disabled local residents who visit the center daily. They arrive by the van load.
Nelson and the center are central to the mission of the Center for Human Development, according to leaders at the agency, whose mission is “good people, good work.” The Springfield-based human services conglomerate offers programs targeting the gamut of social ills and vulnerable populations: needy families, abandoned children and the mentally ill and disabled.
It has grown in leaps and bounds since its inception in 1972, now with1,500 employees and dozens of sites across Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. They include outpatient clinics, tidy group homes for those with Down syndrome, foster care sites and a large alternative high school.
With consistent mergers, new state and federal contracts and steady budget growth, according to figures provided by President and CEO James Goodwin, the agency is the picture of fiscal health in a dreary fiscal climate. It is among the top 10 employers in the Pioneer Valley, according to Jeffrey Ciuffreda, president of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield.
But, Goodwin notes, keeping such an organization solvent and growing is at times a fragile exercise. It requires sacrifices of sentimental favorite programs for the greater good, and frequently gambling on projected health care trends that may or may not pan out.
One case in point: Riverbend Furniture, a so-called “social enterprise” that employed developmentally mentally ill workers in Holyoke, recently closed its doors after 30 years in business. At its peak, the company employed 100 and turned a small profit crafting and selling furniture – chiefly to colleges. However, in 2009 the state cut its annual earmark of $650,000 to help sustain the program. Simultaneously, the cost of materials soared.
“We were importing parts and wood from Malaysia. It took $2.6 million in sales to break even; we couldn’t handle it,” said Goodwin, who founded the company himself in 1982 with a single machine purchased from Sears. “I was trying everything we could. It ripped my guts out to close it.”
James Goodwin is President and CEO of the Center for Human Development. So, too, went two other social enterprises: A New Leaf, a flower shop, and Advanced Office Cleaning, both of which also employed the mentally disabled and lost state funding. Goodwin said the agency reduced staff and carried the ventures for as long as it could – diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars from its general budget and scant fund-raising dollars.
“At some point, we’re not serving enough people to warrant the expense,” Goodwin said. “What we are is a corporation, but everyone views their program as the most critical.”
Chairman of the CHD Board of Directors, Evan C. Plotkin, said he is interested in exploring new social enterprise ventures with more manageable business models.
“Social enterprise, as far as I’m concerned, is a very important part of their mission and what they should be doing,” Plotkin said, adding that he has explored downtown gardening and upholstering businesses as alternatives.
All three businesses were shuttered over the past two or three months, Goodwin said.
Another program that closed its doors abruptly was the Institute for Dynamic Living, on Birnie Avenue in Springfield. It was once a labyrinth of tunnels, tubes and gadgets designed in large part for autistic children and those with “sensory issues.” Goodwin said onetime manager Tina Champagne was a renowned expert in mental health occupational therapy and provided progressive services in a narrow clinical field.
The agency kept it afloat as a third-party payer program, unlike many of their programs which rely on federal and state contracts. Goodwin said they were banking on the recently revised DSM-5 clinical criteria to include specific types of autism, triggering favorable insurance coverage. Instead, the revised standards excluded certain diagnoses, including “sensory integration disorder,” prompting Champagne to leave and the program to fold, according to Goodwin.
“We lost our shirts on occupational therapy,” he said. “I thought sensory integration disorder would be a diagnosis,” included in the new criteria. It was another program CHD subsidized for some time in the hopes insurance coverage was imminent.
Nearly simultaneously, however, Goodwin said he was able to hire two additional occupational therapists under a state contract for children covered by the state Department of Children and Families, which cares for abused and neglected children and adolescents. Such is the world of funding for nonprofit organizations that are clinical/social service hybrids and do little in the way of private fund-raising.
In addition, he plans to open in the institute’s place a new “Acceptance & Commitment Therapy” (ACT) clinic for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. This is an intensive model of psychotherapy for trauma victims Goodwin anticipates will draw military veterans suffering from post-battlefield stress, as well as victims of abuse.
Goodwin said the organization needs to focus more on fund-raising.
CHD raised $700,000 in private donations last year – a small fraction of its $63 million in operating revenues last year. According to private audits conducted annually, that number has climbed steadily since 2008, when it was approximately $43 million.
“I would be thrilled to raise about $750,000 in the coming year,” Goodwin said.
Nonprofits are restricted by a “not-for-profit contractor surplus revenue retention policy fund pool disclosure,” a mouthful that essentially means they are not permitted to accumulate a surplus in excess of 5 percent of its state contracts for the year. Additional revenues must be returned to the state.
Goodwin earns $210,000 annually, a far cry from the $18,000-per-year he made when he started with the organization 34 years ago as manager of four adult group homes.
Residential treatment for troubled and disabled youth, plus disabled adults, remains the backbone of the agency - though its reach has extended far beyond that.
One of its approximately 50 group homes is on Somers Road in East Longmeadow. It is home to four adults with Down syndrome – Tim, 35; Frank. 36; Lisa, 52; and Steve, 53. Before coming to the pretty home with flower boxes and a small garden out back, they hailed from a state school, a foster home and other settings, until it was determined they would benefit from a more independent environment.
The home is staffed around the clock. Lisa is the unchallenged queen bee and favors tea parties. Tim likes to swim. All four draft their own grocery lists and do their own shopping with the help of staff.
“They cook all their own meals and are very independent,” said program supervisor Kathy Walker. “They love each other like family.”
Goodwin said one of the perennial thorns in the organization’s side (and that of similar human service agencies) is resistance from neighbors when they establish new group homes or plan expansions. The Somers Road home was an exception, he said.
Most recently, however, a controversy has erupted over CHD’s Cancer House of Hope on Westfield Street in West Springfield. The agency took over the cancer education initiative in 2009, rescuing it from insolvency, Goodwin said.
Instead of keeping two separate sites in Westfield and Springfield, CHD decided earlier this year to close those and open one, centrally located house in West Springfield.
CHD became embroiled in a debate with the West Springfield building commissioner and a handful of neighbors when it announced plans to make minor modifications to the house. Some neighbors objected to additional cars parked on the street at a public meeting in late July.
The building commissioner contends the program does not have the proper permits to operate in the first place, and issued a cease and desist order.
Goodwin said the program is an educational center and is protected by the “Dover Amendment,” a zoning exemption for educational programs for the disabled and an offshoot of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He argued city officials are unfairly holding the site to commercial standards and presented a set of architectural plans for a small ramp, and some walls they intend to build for privacy.
Further, he said the program caters to very small groups of women who have been diagnosed with cancer and visit the house for free support groups, Raki and yoga one day a week. Goodwin asserts the program draws very little traffic.
“This isn’t yoga for the public. It’s generally for middle-aged women undergoing chemotherapy who find some comfort in being around other women in the same boat,” Goodwin said, adding that he believes the town is needling them in the hopes “they will just go away.”
He said the agency previously has taken similar battles to court, but the debates can become expensive. Cancer House of Hope is funded solely by donations and ran a $140,000 shortfall last year, which CHD covered to keep the program open.
With about 70 umbrella programs, some run at a surplus and others at a deficit, Goodwin said. Among his roles is to keep it all on an even keel.
Typically those that are the most fiscally consistent are state-contracted – including 80 intensive-care foster homes for abused, neglected and special needs children, from infants to teens.
Melanie Hines is one such foster parent. She has three foster sons, ages 11 to 18. Hines has cared for each of them for up to three years, but occasionally takes in short-term, emergency placements.
“I love kids,” she said. “A lot of the kids with pasts like theirs, it’s important to be able to live in a stable home with structure. I’m very close to the kids I have here; they’re like my own.”
Like the Hawthorn Adult Day Centers, foster homes such as Hines’ go directly to the mission of the agency, Goodwin said. He also relies on a staff that is devoted despite the fact that human service jobs are often low-paying and stressful.
“In the end, I want my employees to be proud of this agency. I’m proud of this agency,” he said.