Budget cuts and loss of navigation resources
When a state cuts funding to the organization that helps you find every other service, the cut doesn’t show up on a services list. It shows up as silence the next time you call for help and nobody answers.
Don’t wait for a crisis to discover that your usual point of contact has less capacity than it used to. Save the contact information for Michigan Alliance for Families, your regional Arc Michigan chapter, and your CMH family support coordinator now, while you have time to make the calls calmly.
What got lost
Statewide capacity for helping families navigate CMH, waivers, and school-to-adult transitions shrank dramatically overnight.
Why organizational capacity matters
A single knowledgeable navigator can save a family months of trial and error. Losing that capacity doesn’t just delay help, it compounds confusion.
It happened with little public notice
Families who depended on this organization often learned about the cut only when their usual contact stopped responding.
Arc Michigan chapters
Local Arc chapters across the state continue providing navigation and advocacy support, though capacity varies by region.
CMH family support coordinators
Every CMH board has family support coordinators whose role includes exactly this kind of navigation help.
Centers for Independent Living
CILs offer peer-based navigation and advocacy support, independent of the CMH system entirely.
Alternative navigation resources
Regional advocacy and navigation support
Built into every CMH board’s structure
For rights violations specifically
Peer-based, independent of CMH
Some Michigan law schools offer free legal support
Felicia had called Autism Alliance of Michigan for three years whenever she hit a wall with her son’s services, and the calls always got answered within a day or two. This time, nobody called back for two weeks. She eventually learned about the capacity cuts from another parent at a support group, not from any official notice. She switched to her local Arc Michigan chapter and found help again, just slower and with a different name attached.
When your usual navigation resource has less capacity, here is what to do
Escalation ladder
- 1Confirm whether your usual contact’s capacity has actually changed.
- 2Contact your regional Arc Michigan chapter as a backup.
- 3Ask your CMH board for its family support coordinator by name.
- 4Contact Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service for rights-specific issues.
- 5Check whether a Center for Independent Living serves your region.
- 6Document response times if you’re building a case for advocacy.
Have ready
- Contact information for your regional Arc Michigan chapter
- Your CMH board’s family support coordinator contact
- Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service’s contact information
- Your nearest Center for Independent Living’s contact information
- A note of your original question, so you don’t have to start over each time
A cut to navigation capacity doesn’t announce itself. It just makes the phone ring longer before someone finally answers.
Felicia had a number memorized, the kind you call so often it becomes reflexive. Autism Alliance of Michigan had answered her questions for three years, calmly and competently, whenever her son’s services hit a wall she couldn’t climb alone. This time the call went unanswered for two weeks. No explanation arrived in the mail. She found out about the funding cuts from another parent at a support group meeting, secondhand, the way most families learn that the ground under them has shifted.
What actually happened to Michigan’s navigation capacity
State funding elimination cut Autism Alliance of Michigan’s capacity by roughly 75 percent, a reduction severe enough to reshape what the organization could realistically offer families who depended on it. This wasn’t a gradual scaling back. It was a sudden, deep cut to an organization that had built its reputation on being reachable when the rest of the system wasn’t.
Why organizational capacity is not an abstract concern
A single experienced navigator who knows the CMH system, the waiver landscape, and the specific quirks of your regional PIHP can save a family months of confused trial and error. Losing that capacity doesn’t just mean longer hold times. It means families rediscovering, one at a time and often the hard way, information that used to be a phone call away.
Where families can turn now
Arc Michigan chapters across the state continue offering navigation and advocacy support, with capacity that varies by region. CMH family support coordinators exist specifically for this purpose within your own regional CMH board, though many families don’t know to ask for them by that title. Centers for Independent Living offer peer-based navigation entirely outside the CMH structure, and disability law clinics at some Michigan law schools provide free legal support for rights-based issues.
What to do if the silence continues
If a formal navigation resource has genuinely stopped responding, that’s worth documenting, both for your own advocacy and as evidence for anyone pushing to restore funding. A pattern of unanswered calls, tracked with dates, becomes useful testimony the next time a budget subcommittee asks whether the cuts actually mattered.
Felicia’s phone number still works. It just doesn’t connect to the same amount of help it used to. Knowing that in advance is the only real defense against being blindsided by it during a crisis.
Jim Palasty is the founder of OASIS for Autism and a single father of an adult autistic daughter in Michigan.