Save the Michaels closes Lockport recovery center after loss of funding

"For 15 years, Save the Michaels has been a grassroots organization serving Western New York with compassion, urgency, and lived experience. We have answered tens of thousands of calls and helped thousands enter treatment. We have helped everyone who calls for help. No other organization does the work that we do

We have fully cooperated with all requests from government.
We have new leadership in place.

Despite this, our contracts are being terminated. The new leadership is not being given any chance to move forward.

To discontinue working with a grassroots agency that has made measurable impact in this community for over a decade should concern everyone, not just for us, but especially the individuals and families who rely on these services every single day.

If Save the Michaels has helped you or someone you love, we need your voice now.

Call the New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS)
518-457-8299 and let them know about the impact of this decision.

Contact the Governor’s office and your local elected officials.
Ask them to reinstate Save the Michaels’ contracts so that Western New York continues to have recovery services.

This is not just about one organization.
This is about access to treatment.
This is about recovery.
This is about saving lives.

Please share. Please call. Please stand with us.

— Save the Michaels"

"Contrary to the reports that are citing outdated and inaccurate information, Save the Michaels operates within the laws and rules of this state. We have helped tens of thousands of Western New Yorkers find and sustain their recovery. We are requesting that the Erie County government provide us with the opportunity to respond to any concerns they may have. To date, they have NOT offered that opportunity. Thank you."

Governor Hochul and Commissioner Cunningham,

I have served as Chief Executive Officer of Save the Michaels for less than 60 days. In that short time, I have worked tirelessly to stabilize, reform, and strengthen an organization that has served Western New York’s recovery community for 15 years.

Yet before new leadership has been given a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate progress, the State has chosen to move toward dismantling us.

This decision is not administrative. It is consequential. And it will cost lives.

In November 2025, Save the Michaels met with OASAS and Erie County to directly address concerns. It was announced that prior leadership would step down effective January 1, 2026. In December, we cooperated fully with requests to adjust our scope of services — even when those changes reduced our capacity. We partnered with a licensed outpatient provider to ensure level-of-care determinations were clinically sound. We responded to the 2024 audit findings. At no point were we told our corrective actions were insufficient. At no point were we ever warned that we were at risk of losing our contracts or that concerns were that grave.

Come January, we were informed that a $425,000 scope of services was still “under review.” For three months, we were told contracts were being processed. We were then told they were with legal. We were told funding was forthcoming.

We operated in good faith on the word of State and County representatives.

Then, without resolution of the current audit process and without meaningful dialogue, funding was pulled. Not phased. Not conditioned. Not placed under enhanced oversight. Pulled.

• If the concern is governance, then govern.
• If the concern is fiscal oversight, then oversee.
• If the concern is compliance, then monitor.

But do not eliminate a 15-year grassroots recovery organization without allowing new leadership the opportunity to prove corrective action and stability.

There has been no fraud. There has been no personal enrichment. There has been no criminal referral because none is warranted. There has only been a small, community-based organization linking individuals to treatment within 24–48 hours, answering approximately 55,000 calls annually, and serving individuals who do not walk through the doors of larger systems.

The people most affected by this decision are not administrators. They are participants — individuals in active addiction, individuals experiencing homelessness, families in crisis. Many of them trust Save the Michaels and will not seek services elsewhere. We have spent years building that trust in Lockport and surrounding communities. It can be destroyed in a single administrative action.

We have:

• Outsourced accounting
• Strengthened fiscal controls
• Reduced staff to bare-bones operations
• Fully cooperated with OASAS
• Openly invited oversight and partnership

Still, we have not been granted a meeting at the highest levels to resolve this.

Instead, public narratives are being shaped by disgruntled former employees, while the thousands who have been helped remain unheard.

Governor and Commissioner, I ask directly:

• Why was termination chosen over structured oversight?
• Why was collaboration rejected?
• Why was a transition in leadership not given time to take effect?
• Why initiate this audit if the decision to terminate our funding has already been made?

The appearance is that this outcome was predetermined.

Save the Michaels has advocated for legislative reform, pushed for accountability in recovery systems, and stood on the front lines of the opioid crisis for over a decade. Without us, certain recovery protections in this state would not exist. We have fought for your constituents when few others would.

This is not a request for special treatment. It is a demand for fair treatment.

If there are specific deficiencies that remain, identify them clearly. If enhanced oversight is required, implement it. If structural safeguards are needed, mandate them. But do not force our hand and close a community-based recovery organization through delay, silence, and procedural withdrawal.

Lives are not abstractions. They are on the other end of our phones every day. Attached are several statements from individuals who have used and succeeded because of our services.

I am ready — today — to meet, to answer questions, to provide documentation, and to work under any reasonable conditions necessary to protect the people we serve.

The question is whether the State is willing to do the same.