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Unpaid Bill Has Suicide-Prevention Hotline at Risk of Shutdown
With no major grant to support the suicide hotline, H. Reese Butler is struggling to raise $67,000 to pay the phone bill.
(By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)
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But in recent years, Butler has run into financial difficulty and feuded with the U.S. agency and the society.
In 2004, the federal agency declared the Hope Center and the American Society of Suicidology in violation of terms of the grant, alleging that they had entered into contracts with corporations without its approval and that Butler had put family members on the payroll. Butler acknowledged having hired his son, Hank, but said he removed him from the payroll when he was notified of the agency's concerns.
Butler's grant was not renewed and, when it expired in December 2004, the federal mental health agency created 1-800-273-TALK. It contracted with a New York organization to run it.
Butler received some funding last year from the National Mental Health Association, but that ended in March, and the center has been scrambling since.
Butler's struggles have exasperated mental-health counselors who have worked with him for years. Although they praise his passion for the hotline, they say his business skills leave something to be desired.
"Reese dug a lot of his own holes," said Jansen, of Community Crisis Services.
Butler says the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration owes him $266,000 for expenses incurred during the grant-- a claim the agency denies -- and says it has created a "government-run system" that allows the agency to find out who calls for help.
"If they don't need to have the data, then why do they need to own the hotline?" Butler asked. "The only justification for owning the hotline is that they get access to the data."
Not so, the agency said. The only information it collects, it said, is the number of calls referred to each crisis center. And crisis centers say that unless they believe a caller is in imminent danger of suicide, no information is shared with authorities.
"Crisis centers are very careful to protect the confidentiality of callers," said Carol Loftur-Thun, executive director of Crisis Link in Arlington, one of the Washington area's largest centers. Like most centers nationwide, Crisis Link takes calls referred by both hotlines.
Butler has offered to lease his widely known phone number to the federal agency, as long as he can remove personal information -- such as callers' phone numbers -- before the agency sees it. The agency has refused, saying the offer "was not in the best interest of the program" or the agency, spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said.
If 1-800-SUICIDE shuts down, callers will get a message referring them to the other hotline.
But crisis centers say they are concerned that some vulnerable callers won't dial a second number to get help.
The whole situation, said Patricia Tedford of CONTACT Delaware, "makes us all look bad. And that's a shame."
