Long Island Crisis Center Funding Restored by County

Long Island Crisis Center was recently informed that their funding from Nassau County was restored.

"I think it's bittersweet," Linda Leonard, executive director of LICC said. "We lost many other youth services in Nassau County and there is no where to send our kids." 

The Bellmore-based crisis support and suicide prevention organization and dozens of other youth service agencies were told in June that their funding would be terminated as of July 6. Nassau County said that if they could not get approval to borrow $41 million from the state, they would terminate all 58 youth service contracts in the county.

Jaime Bogenschutz, director of the nearby YES Community Counseling Center in Massapequa, told Patch that the organization is doing its best to keep things running smoothly with less funding.

“We’re trying to reposition clients and make sure they have a place to go and a person to speak with,” she said. “We’re going to put into effect a very strategic plan in terms of what’s going to happen now ... we don't know yet is any employees are going to be terminated or shifted. We’ve also begun to notify some of our networks that we may have limited capability.”

Leonard said that what the county has done to other organizations is "unacceptable."

"It's a terrible thing that they are doing this to youth services and to young people," she said. "This can ruin lives."

Chris Boyle contributed to this report.