After decades of treating low-income Texans fighting substance addiction, Phoenix House Texas is closing down all six of its outpatient clinics and its last residential treatment center for teens this week because they can no longer count on the state to help fund them, the nonprofit group’s director said Tuesday.
The 28-year-old organization relies heavily on federal block grants administered through the state to serve its mostly low-income adolescent patient population. And the nonprofit is the latest casualty in an escalating funding crisis for Texas residential treatment centers that comes as the state struggles with startling increases in overdose deaths, particularly among young people.
“We feel like this couldn’t be worse timing,” said Drew Dutton, CEO of Phoenix House Texas, which only treats adolescents. “This is when we feel like Texas needs us the absolute most, and we're having to close our doors and turn away patients.”
