The Nancy Devereux Center, a drop-in day facility that cares for those struggling with serious mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, abruptly closed its doors Tuesday.

A telephone call to the center that day confirmed reports from area caregivers whose clients were sent home early. According to Michelle Stemen, a client services representative at the center, the facility had, indeed, closed.

However, she would not say why.

“It's confidential,” she said, moments before hanging up the telephone.

According to a member of the board that governs the charitable nonprofit organization, the future of the center remains questionable.

“It all comes down to funding,” Devereux Center Board Member Bob Johnston said during an interview on Wednesday. “We are looking at what we need to do to operate and be solvent. It's very important that we close - we believe, temporarily.”

Johnston said the decision to close the center, located at 1200 Newmark Ave., in Coos Bay, was made during a recent executive session meeting of the board. He said he hopes the center, which has been in existence since the 1970s, can find a way to reopen the doors to all those in need, after what he described as a short-term restructuring period.

“We are hoping to get some funding,” Johnston said. “We have a lot of ambitious people that are very proactive.”

The center is still providing some services during the closure to about 23 clients, Johnston said, who are no longer in control of their finances. “Representative payees,” pay their bills by order of the state.

Although he acknowledged the money crunch forced the center to scale back on programs and activities the center offers, the number of clients being served has remained the same. Johnston said the center has struggled since the Coos County Mental Health Department stopped providing funding. However, he declined to comment when that occurred, or how much the county contributed to the center. He said the restructuring phase was “basically financial,” but he declined to comment on further questions about the restructuring and then abruptly ended the interview.

“I'm done talking to you. Please just print what I talked to you about,” Johnston said.

According to Jason D. Culver, a former executive director for the center, another board member, Barbara Anderson, contacted him Tuesday, and asked him to return to help the center through what she referred to as a regrouping phase that likely would include laying off several of the center's employees. Culver had resigned from the position six months ago, citing overwork.

Anderson, he said, also asked him to be the de facto spokesman if questioned by the media about the closure. This morning, Anderson said she asked Culver if he would be willing to speak on behalf of the center, but they agreed that Johnston would be the media's point of contact.

“This facility has done a lot of good things and we continue to hope to do more,” she said. “But right now, we need some time and elbow room.”

When asked if the current executive director is still employed at the facility, Anderson said: “I have no idea. We are having a board meeting today.”

After Culver resigned, he kept in sporadic contact with fellow co-workers. They told him of the struggles the center was going through, including the loss of a $5,000 grant and a $10,000 energy tax credit grant that was still hanging in the balance.

“I thought that was kind of odd,” Culver said during an interview on Wednesday night, noting he had called the center to inquire about his W2 forms - which he has yet to receive.

His former co-workers also spoke of a drastic reduction in the number of activities the center offered, curtailing or abandoning programs he helped get off the ground including numerous arts and crafts project, reading and exercise programs and field trips that drew people to the center.

“I don't think anything like that happened after I left,” he said. “They stopped doing those things. That would be a reason they would not be coming back.”

In 2003, when Culver was hired as executive director, he grew the center to care for about 25 people per day from about 16. He also helped secure about $25,000 from the Coos County Mental Health Department, which he said had previously shuttled $350,000 annually to the center with a greatly expanded program base. When he resigned, no one took over the reins of the $25,000 county program, and that money dried up, too, he said. He said he believes the drop in client visits is directly related to the closure.

“I don't think they know why they have low retention,” he said. “Once you go from 25 people per day to less than 15 - something must be going on. They must have thought, ‘We must do something about this or we are going to lose everybody.'”

Culver's characterization of the current state of the center's activities rings true with at least one of the myriad foster caregivers who sends clients to the Devereux Center each day. Kathy Crick, who runs a foster home in North Bend for five clients, has been sending her clients to the facility for about seven years.

But on Tuesday, the center sent the clients back to her.

“One of my residents came home and told me (the Devereux Center was) closed,” Crick said. “There was no notice ... nothing.”

Crick said she called the center and spoke with someone who informed her that the center may be closed for several weeks or permanently, due to a lack of staffing. Crick said her clients complained of a drop off in the number of activities at the center ever since Culver left, and that fewer and fewer people were going to the facility.

She speculated that some residents also may have stopped going after a hike in daily fees at the center. Culver said when he led the center, residents paid a $1 fee to cover some expenses, but Crick said she had heard the fee increased to $3 per day. However, Johnston said, while the board considered raising the fee to $3 per day - to mirror rising gas costs - it ultimately decided not to.

He would not say what the daily fee is now.

With the loss of the center, Crick wonders where she can send her clients each day, to give her a little respite. What set the Devereux Center apart from some of the other similar facilities, is that transportation was provided to and from the facility.

“They go there to meet their friends,” Crick said. “They go to the mall together, or Wal-Mart. They went to the Kozy Kitchen the other day for lunch. They just had a blast. It's their little bit of freedom. They're really going to miss that.”