A 21 percent budget cut at the Illinois Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse is taking a heavy toll on funded service providers, many of whom are being forced to slash staff and show qualified clients the door, the Chicago Tribune reported Aug. 18.

Haymarket Center, the largest addiction treatment facility in Chicago, has laid off 80 employees and has turned away more than 200 uninsured individuals from one facility since losing $4 million in state funding as of Aug. 1. "This is the dismantling of an entire health care system in the state of Illinois," said Haymarket vice president Anthony Cole.

The state substance abuse agency was one of the departments hardest hit by budget cuts imposed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in order to erase what he said was a $2 billion deficit in a legislatively approved state budget. The cuts to the agency mean that another $52 million in federal matching money also will not go to Illinois, generating a net result of an expected elimination of care for more than 40 percent of the 98,000 people served annually in the public treatment system.

Haymarket Center, like many other facilities in the Chicago area, has had to refer some individuals seeking treatment to public hospitals, while limiting services for others to detox without extended treatment. At North Lawndale for Family Guidance Centers, administrator Cephus Childs was forced to evict without notice 16 homeless men enrolled in a four-month treatment program.

"The men were enraged, and rightly so," Childs said. "Three of the men went out and grabbed a drink immediately. Their sobriety was gone."

Treatment administrators are warning that the cuts will eventually come back to haunt the state, in that untreated substance use problems will manifest in increased hospitalization and criminal justice costs.