Adult Day Care To Close

Open Hands, the agency that has provided adult day care and other services to Santa Fe’s medically frail and elderly residents since 1977, will close next Friday.

“If you drive by our building, you’ll see a ‘for sale’ sign,” said Alden Oyer, president of the nonprofit’s board of directors. “We’ve had the building on the market for 13 months. We are operating at a loss.”

Some 20 employees were told of the closing Friday morning. Open Hands is located on Rodeo Park Drive East.

Oyer blamed the closing on the recession. Donations and funding dwindled while expenses grew, he said.

“We were hanging in there, but the economy started to tank,” he said. “Generally, we’ve run out of money.”

But the agency is also struggling with “substantial” debt, he acknowledged, although he would not give a specific figure. He said that even if someone were to make a “substantial” donation, the money would only keep the business afloat for a couple of months.

In 2009, then-director Michelle Dube said fundraising had dropped 40 percent in the past two years, state funding had declined, and the agency then had a $100,000 debt.

At that time, she said, the agency’s operating budget had dropped from $1.9 million to $1.5 million during two years, and eight staff members had been laid off.

According to Oyer, the agency’s workers will complete currently contracted home modifications such as wheelchair ramps despite the closure, he said.

Also, he said, the agency is in the process of finding places for its 19 adult day care clients “as best we can.”

But Liz Stefanics, a current Santa Fe County commissioner who served as Open Hands’ executive director from 1989-1993 and again 1995-2001, said she doesn’t know of any other local provider of adult day care for the population Open Hands has served.

“I’m pretty shocked and sad about it,” she said of the closing. “It served so many thousands of elders in our community. … It kept people out of nursing homes and helped families have some independence while knowing their loved ones were being cared for.”

She said she also feels bad for the many donors who helped support Open Hands over the years and who rallied to raise enough money to open the new facility in 2001. “Every time we got a new board president, they knew they were going to have an intense fundraising job for a couple of years,” Stefanics said.

Since its 1977 inception, Open Hands has provided essential services to help frail elderly, disabled and impoverished members of the community to live independently. Its adult care program provided professional care for people who suffered from Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia.

Open Hands also offered home modifications like bathroom grab bars and walker-safe stairs to help keep disabled people mobile. Its medical equipment loan bank has lent canes, walkers, wheelchairs, shower benches and commodes to anyone in the community for free.

Open Hands is now giving away all of these items. Its thrift store will hold a fire sale until the closing date. After that, the building and its assets will be sold to pay its creditors in full, Oyer said.

“I shed quite a few tears over this myself,” he continued, “and so have the staff. We feel like we’ve lost a dear family member. I can’t overstate our appreciation for the way the staff has hung in there.”

Other agencies have already requested resumes from Open Hands’ employees, he added.

Journal city editor Jackie Jadrnak contributed to this story.