This does not match up...

Governor: State to cut jobs, close mental hospitals
By Julie Carr Smyth/AP Statehouse Correspondent
POSTED: 11:57 a.m. EST, Jan 31, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The state will eliminate up to 2,700 jobs, close two mental hospitals and limit other spending in an effort to reduce a projected budget deficit, Gov. Ted Strickland announced Thursday.
Strickland also issued a series of directives to limit travel, new contracts, equipment purchases and other spending categories in the face of a predicted a budget shortfall of between $733 million and $1.9 billion by June 2009, depending on how the economy fares.
A minimum of 1,500 jobs will be lost, Strickland said. The hospitals to be shuttered are in Dayton in western Ohio and Cambridge in eastern Ohio.
Strickland said the state also plans to get $73 million from an expansion of the lottery, including some new games.
The changes will account for the lower deficit amount, at minimum, Strickland said.
If the situation worsens, he would consider using money from the rainy day fund, which is set aside for budget emergencies.
He said he will protect tax reforms that started in 2005, as well as the homestead tax exemption for seniors, the tuition freeze at state colleges and universities, and the expansion of children's health care that were in the budget plan that began in July.




Funding will help ex-inmates stay clean
Grant tries to end cycle of addiction and crime
By Colette M. Jenkins Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Thursday, Jan 31, 2008
Beginning next week, nearly $14 million in federal grant money will be available to help released prisoners with addictions navigate the road to re-entry in Summit, Stark and Cuyahoga counties.
That was the message Wednesday from Angela L. Cornelius, director of the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, to about 100 representatives from faith- and community-based organizations that provide substance-abuse treatment and support services in the three targeted counties.
Cornelius spoke during a forum at the Interval Brotherhood Home to launch Ohio's Access to Recovery grant, which is officially called ''Choice for Recovery.''
The initiative is expected to benefit about 6,200 adult ex-offenders over the next three years by helping them break the cycleof addiction and crime. Summit, Stark and Cuyahoga counties were targeted, because they receive the highest number of returning offenders.
''The rate of recidivism and relapse are directly tied to the lack of support these individuals receive when they return to their communities,'' Cornelius said. ''This initiative gives access and choice to people who need these services to become re-engaged in life and become productive members of Ohio's communities. It gives hope and direction for a successful recovery journey.''
Access to Recovery is a three-year program funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
It is a presidential initiative that provides vouchers to clients for substance-abuse clinical treatment and recovery support services.
Access to Recovery projects are funded in 17 other states, five tribal organizations and the District of Columbia.
First vouchers Monday
In Ohio, the first vouchers will be given Monday to ex-offenders, who have gone through an assessment process. The vouchers are to be taken to benefit coordinators, which are agencies in each county that give the voucher holder, or client, a list of appropriate providers. The client can then make a choice of provider from the list. A Web-based voucher payment system will monitor the operations and effectiveness of the Choice for Recovery program.
The coordinating agency in Cuyahoga County has not been named. In Stark County, Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC) Inc. is the benefit coordinator. Oriana House in Akron is the coordinator for Summit County.
Barriers to success
''In addition to dealing with addictions, it is clear that when those who are incarcerated are released, they face barriers like child care, transportation, housing and employment,'' said Chris Richardson, program manager at Oriana House. ''We need as many agencies in the county as possible to come on board to provide the resources that ex-offenders need to get on the right path. If we can connect them with the resources that are needed, we will reduce the rate of recidivism and see fewer repeat offenders.''
The Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services is accepting applications from potential providers. Grant money can be used for treatment services, as well as recovery support services, including education, short-term housing, marriage and family counseling and life-skills training.
''These vouchers offer some positive options to people who have been incarcerated as a result of their addictions or because of problems related to their addictions,'' said the Rev. Sam Ciccolini, executive director at Interval Brotherhood Home. ''What this really means is people who get caught up in the vicious cycle of addiction and being sent to prison will now be given options to get help and get into treatment.''
Colette Jenkins can be reached at 330-996-3731 or cjenkins@thebeaconjournal.com.


Good idea... lets cut funding and close mental institutions and give more money to sex offenders in prision to stay clean. That way we can have more mentally unstable people on the streets while making sure the ex-prisioners stay drug free. The brilliance of this concept is almost too much bear.

Don't get me wrong, I think its great that they are trying to keep ex prisioners drug free... and I would not object pouring money into keeping those people clean if they weren't putting people on the street in this fashion.

I understand they are not taking money from the mentally insane and giving it to prisioners directly... but it seems like thats what is going on.

I'm going to write a little letter to Mr. Strickland I think...

(and yes, i'm becoming my dad)

Desperately asking for peace...

I feel like most of my prayers/ thoughts have been about peace...

Peace here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/africa/30kenya.html?ref=world

Peace here...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/middleeast/30baghdad.html?ref=world

and peace in my own heart of disaster...

"Blessed is the peacemaker"
... much easier said than done...

We just need to do our part...

"She said that the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes."
-Anne Lamott

The imperfect love of people...

I've been trying to think of a good word to describe tonight... and I am at a loss.

Tonight was real... and raw... and so so refreshing.

I got to sit around with some other twenty something ordinary radicals whose hearts are all sold out for Jesus... and for wanting to see change in the body.

Each one of them has a voice, a dream, a passion, and a vision and we are coming together to combine them and make things happen. It was refreshing to see people do more than just the talking... but in our very first meeting to plan the actions that need to be taken.

I am amazed that God has been doing things in all of us before we even knew that we would all be together. I am excited to see what amazing things God will do through these passions and willing hearts, hands, and feet.

And the idea of community with these people when I move back is an answered prayer. It's nice to be on the same page with others... it's nice to be in a room with people who get you.

"There are cracks, cracks, in everything... that's how the light gets in."

1 John 2:8
"Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, becuase the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining through."

1 John 1:5
"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all."

The darkness is passing... and I feel like I just found a little more light shining through... a little light that I can be apart of (thank You, thank You, thank You).

Freinds and good times...

Friends are such a beatiful thing.

And I have been able to see so many of them the past few days.

Our annual cookie delivery was a hit... once again... we got to see some Kelly and some Ryder and some Emily and some Kim. There is nothing like green sugar cookies cut out like christmas trees!

I got together with some of the Nehemiah alums (Abby, Adam, Peter, and Suzi) and we got to share life over some soup and salad at Applebees. It is so wonderful to be with them. Any one of them for any amount of time. It is always refreshing.

New Year's eve was a blast. I worked all night at a kids overnight at the athletic club. Sleep was not important to anyone that night... but that is what happens when you put 30 kids in one room.

Then i got a wonderful visit in with THE jake beemer at hound dogs before he went back to become famous in florida.

I got to spend the day at the hospital yesterday on the ICU unit playing nurse. It made me really excited for the next season of life! Then I got to spend some much overdue time at the great house with joe and in the process saw all kids of people like tj and jeremy and matt and jim and ryan and everyone else who strays in and out of that awesome house.

Today was wonderful having some chinese lunch with kim and caitlin and planning kent trips. they are so nice to be with. then i got to go see some old time friends and erin's new baby!

This is more for my pleasure than any of yours. I needed to get down all the great things and great people that i have been able to see recently.

That's all for now. I'm leaving in a week and didn't get to do half of what i wanted to do while i was here...

I'm going to go work on that list right now.

Thank You...

listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings in the stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the aminlas dying around us
out lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

-w.s. merwin

It seems it's been disappointment after disappointment recently... but then I sense this quiet reminder that it's apart of the world we live in and i need not worry becasue I am not in control of my life or the lives of others. I try so hard to be... and I'm ready to give it up.

You are all I need... help me understand that.

Come free us,
King Jesus...

And another one...

Timmy too.

Pray for sweet sweet Timmy. For he too is trying to get things under control. Praise God for his life... and his smile... which pierces me.