Suicide hotline struggles for survival

Shaunta Grimes and Jerry Fink

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1999 | 11:55 a.m.

Hotlines

For the second straight year Southern Nevada's only suicide hotline finds itself struggling to survive at the onset of the period when most suicides occur.

However, a statewide nonprofit suicide prevention agency in Reno that was funded recently by a state grant could provide counseling services if the state's oldest suicide hotline does not survive its latest financial woes.

The Suicide Prevention Hotline of Clark County started an intense fund-raising effort in the past week to keep its doors open. A spokesman said the hotline currently has enough money to remain open at least another month because of the effort.

The hotline is three months behind in rent and owes money to an answering service that takes calls and routes them to volunteer counselors, spokesman Paul Draher said.

The new hotline based in Reno became operational in September but the organization is still in the process of finding volunteers and so has not advertised its services or its toll-free number yet. However, counselors are on duty.

Misty Allen, coordinator of the Suicide Prevention Hotline of Nevada in Reno, said Nevadans considering suicide will have a resource for help available for at least the next two years. The grant from the state Department of Mental Health and Developmental Services provides $98,000 a year through 2001.

The grant was awarded to the 30-year-old Crisis Call Center of Reno, which has expanded its capabilities to provide statewide service for suicide calls.

Kini Miller-Gore, support staff volunteer and training coordinator with the Las Vegas agency, said even though there is a second agency available statewide, it is still important for the Clark County hotline to remain open.

"If this office closes down right now, Reno has themselves a piece of pie they can't handle," she said.

Miller-Gore said Clark County receives more calls than the Reno hotline could handle at this point.

Dorothy Bryant, executive officer of the Southern Nevada agency, is at a grant-writing seminar this week and was unavailable to comment.

Allen said there has been no discussion of the two hotlines merging for logistical reasons, adding there is a need for two hotlines.

If one hotline were not working for any reason, "We would hate to have no backup," she said.

The Clark County hotline receives as many as 30 calls per day -- up to 10,000 a year, Miller-Gore said.

The Crisis Call Center in Reno receives 13,000 calls per year from people statewide except Clark County. The calls cover all types of crises.

Draher said that though the agency had a similar emergency last year and sent out a plea for help, this is not a fund-raising ploy.

Every phone call to the hotline costs the Clark County organization $1 -- money raised through private donations, yard sales, pledges from friends and businesses. The group does not currently get any grants.

Miller-Gore said donations dropped off last year after the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Las Vegas received a three-year, $500,000 federal grant to study suicide in Nevada, which has a rate of about 24 per 100,000 compared with the national average of about 12 per 100,000.

The public apparently thought the money, or part of it, would go to the hotline, she said.

Bryan Henchik, Clark County hotline board member, said the grant created the Suicide Prevention Research Center. The similarity of the center's name to the Suicide Prevention Hotline created more confusion, he said.

The confusion has played a part in creating the financial problems now facing the local agency at a time when the number of calls typically increase.

"Halloween to Christmas is the busiest time of year," Draher said.

Experts say the two-month period is a festive, family-oriented time that may heighten the depression of many who have no families and push many despondent people over the edge.

Nevada has the highest suicide rate in the nation, Draher said.

"And Clark County has the highest in the state," he noted.