PATH Crisis Center in Bloomington is “stepping away” from its role leading a regional homeless services program called the Central Illinois Continuum of Care [CICoC], the nonprofit’s interim CEO and executive director told WGLT.
The program is run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development [HUD], and PATH has been the collaborative applicant for McLean County and 10 other area counties for years, spearheading grant application efforts and other administrative tasks.
Carter said the move was “extremely procedural” on PATH’s end.
“This is part of a process,” he explained. “This is not necessarily reflective of incompetence, or missteps. It's a part of a procedure that is put into place by HUD.”
And the organization is still going strong.
“PATH is not closing its doors,” Carter added.
The nonprofit had to formally “resign” to HUD’s Continuum of Care [CoC] board, so it could accept and pave the way for a new organization to take over when applications open.
“We’re not just dropping this on someone at some point and saying, ‘We’re gone. We’re out,’” Carter said.
To operate an effective CoC, Carter said HUD told the organization it takes at least three full-time employees. He added that would be a “hard lift for anyone in the Continuum,” including PATH.
Carter said other organizations already have reached out to him about taking over, and he sent an email to CoC members encouraging them to make contact if they might be interested.
“There's no threat of us not having a continuum, there's no threat of us not having funding come to the area,” he reiterated. “This is just the formal process of kind of passing the torch so to speak, that the first thing we have to do is step down so someone else can step in.”
A timeline is unclear, Carter added, as it’s dependent on when HUD releases its application, which it hasn’t done yet.
However, Carter said PATH is going to continue doing its job as the CoC lead in the meantime, and ongoing projects will be maintained. And when another organization takes over as the collaborative applicant, PATH will still be part of the Continuum.
Carter said the nonprofit’s Homeless Services division will not close by any means.
This comes within a week of the news that the state did not select PATH to manage the statewide call center for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline past June 30, when the current agreement between the nonprofit and the Illinois Department of Human Services expires.
Carter emphasized this was another contract-based agreement between organizations. It also was a competitive grant application cycle for the upcoming fiscal year.
“We wrote a fantastic grant, and in this situation, the other grant applicant just scored higher,” he said.
Any attempt to find meaning beyond the scores isn’t helpful at this point, he added, noting that judges scoring the applications really only look at what’s presented to them on paper.
The Illinois Department of Human Services' decision to drop PATH has forced the crisis center to issue layoff notices to dozens of call center employees.
"These individuals gave a lot of themselves to listen day in and day out the individuals who are experiencing extremely traumatic and emotional situations and they gave of themselves to be of service to others. And these individuals are my heroes," Carter said.
Carter acknowledged PATH has gone through some changes. Its longtime CEO retired a few years ago, and her successor died last year. There also was another interim leader before Carter took over at the end of December.
He said that has impacted the organization because it takes time to onboard people and get up to speed. Logging into one system could require up to three passwords, Carter pointed out, so it’s entirely possible for information to fall through the cracks.
While that wasn’t the case with the 988 call center application, or the CoC resignation, this did cause PATH to miss deadlines on some CoC-funded grant opportunities recently.
“It was just unfortunate that all those things kinda aligned with deadlines and when things were required,” Carter explained about the turnover and subsequent grants that were missed.
He added that he doesn’t see this as a blunder because no one is at fault.
“I don't point fingers at anyone,” he said. “It's kind of like standing in the middle of a snowstorm — it was just circumstantial.”
Carter said neither of these transitions are reflective of the PATH’s overall function, as they are elective positions the organization held. He added the nonprofit has been around for 53 years, and it will continue.
“We’re still open,” he said.
