Ottawa CMH Board greenlights funding for Momentum Center, but future contract in doubt

The Momentum Center has received funding through the end of the 2024 fiscal year after multiple attempts by the Ottawa Impact majority on the Community Mental Health Board of Directors.

OTTAWA COUNTY — The Momentum Center in Ottawa County has now received funding through the end of the 2024 fiscal year after multiple attempts by the Ottawa Impact majority on the Community Mental Health Board of Directors to cut off public monies for the organization.

The Momentum Center's roughly $290,000 contract comprises about 43 percent of the organization’s budget; the group currently has over 300 members.

On Monday, June 3, the CMH board approved funding through the end of September for all four of the county’s social recreation programs it has contracts with — including Heritage Homes Inc. ($216,000), Indian Trails Camp, IKUS Life Enrichment ($138,499.92) and Pioneer Resources ($81,364.72) — which rely on the county's mental health millage as their primary source of funding, according to budget details. 

Barbara Lee VanHorssen is the director of the Momentum Center. [Courtesy/The Holland Sentinel]

In March 2016, Ottawa County voters approved a 10-year mental health millage, which generates an estimated $3.2 million annually.

In September, the board was tasked with approving 63 annual contracts for the upcoming fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Among them was the $290,799.92 contract for the Momentum Center, which has drawn the ire of Ottawa Impact and its supporters over its focus on social determinants, according to the center's director, Barbara Lee VanHorssen.

OI is a far-right fundamentalist group formed by disgruntled residents over school mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. It now controls six seats on the 11-member board of commissioners, three of whom also sit on the CMH Board.

Opponents of VanHorssen's organization have accused her of "pushing a political agenda," "using clients as social experiments" and spouting "diversity, equity and inclusion propaganda."

There hasn’t been a clear avenue, however, to justify defunding the center leading to several contract extensions throughout the fiscal year — normally approved annually — for all four social recreation programs funding through CMH funding.

Board member Stephen Rockman renewed his objections from the CMH board’s highly contentious Dec. 18 meeting, where he alleged VanHorssen’s participation in a Pride event last summer made the center’s relationship with the county inappropriate.

“I guess I’ll pick up where I left off Dec. 18,” he said, showing a picture of VanHorssen with drag queens.

“The relationship between the Momentum Center and CMH brings up some questions,” he said, saying children from the community — none affiliated with VanHorssen — attended the event. 

He also pointed to the center’s advocacy for anti-racism efforts in the community.

“A townhall that claims to be a grassroots movement to create a stigma-free community … unless maybe you’re white,” Rockman said.

Board member Sylvia Rhodea furthered that criticism by saying the relationship between Momentum Center and the county is “inappropriate” because of the “activist activities” — despite being the co-founder of OI, a political action group.

“It does appear that Momentum Center has a fair number of activist activities going on. I do feel like there’s a mechanism for a private center to do fundraising for those activities and that that’s not necessarily a function of CMH — to be funding activist activities,” said Rhodea, current vice chair of the county board of commissioners. 

“I also don’t think CMH should be funding things like trips. There’s definitely an appearance that there might be some inappropriate funding things going on there. It just doesn’t smell right,” Rhodea said, alluding to international trips the center organizes to raise funds.

“There’s been a sense of entitlement to community funds when things have been presented from Momentum Center. Activist organizations shouldn’t be entitled to public money, especially when you’re serving people with critical needs — it’s just inappropriate.”

Read more: CMH leverages OI absence to grant six-month funding extension to social programs

VanHorssen has repeatedly refuted any inappropriate spending, saying the cultural immersion trips help raise funds for the center — not hinder them.

"They're kind of doubling down on the whole idea," she previously told The Holland Sentinel. "They've created this myth in their mind that our cultural immersion trips are luxury vacation trips on the taxpayer dollar. And to make it worse, they say we glorify other countries while bashing our own."

In reality, the trips allow Ottawa County residents to experience other countries by interacting with local citizens, trying new foods and taking part in excursions that tourists don't typically seek out, like a coffee experience in Honduras and a traditional medicine experience in China, she said.

Van Horssen said she finds it hurtful that board members would use their access to the public platform to perpetuate misinformation about her and her work.

“I find it incredibly uncomfortable that aspects of my life are shared here and I’m not allowed the opportunity to respond,” she said during public comment at the end of Monday’s meeting.

“The Momentum Center has never engaged in politics and until a blog started spreading misinformation about us, it was never an issue.”

Sheila Detloff

You’re not here to let your personal views affect your decisions. You’re here to make objective decisions.

Chris Kleinjans, a CMH board member who also recently defeated OI commissioner Lucy Ebel in a special May 7 recall election, said the a thorough review of the Momentum Center’s contract and services showed everything was in order.

“We looked athow the money was coming in and how it was going out,” he said. “They were doing the programming we were paying them to do — regardless of what they were doing outside of that.”

Kleinjans also noted that when the request for proposal, or RFP, process comes to pass in late summer, all the social recreation programs will be required to provide more clarity on their financials to “disperse some of that confusion.”

“Creating transparency and clarity will be baked into the cake during the RFP process, I’m sure,” he said.

New board member Bob Bird said, although he finds some of the programming and initiatives at Momentum Center “offensive,” he didn’t see the widsom in withdrawing funding without providing an alternative to the community.

“Do I withdraw my support for the program and then we have nothing? We have a responsibility as a board here and we shouldn’t withdraw funding without providing an alternative,” Bird said. “If I have a heart problem, do I go to Holland Hospital and not get treated because they also provide abortions — which I personally oppose — or do I choose to participate in the program that I need? That’s what I’m personally struggling with here … do we throw the baby out with the bathwater?”

Board member Donna Bunce said she hears concerns about the Momentum Center at her own organization, the “Christ-centered” Compassionate Heart Ministries, which also serves as a drop-in center for those with developmental disabilities.

“I believe that all people need services. I hear from peole, ‘I don’t feel like it’s a safe place as an option,’ so I see people from the other side. Those optics matter,” she said.

Kleinjans cautioned his fellow board members against making decisions for community members who are able to or have caregivers to make the best choices for their activities.

“To infer that people are trapped into going to a place where they don’t want to go is somewhat of a red herring, because there’s your program … because of the programs you offer and the environment you create,” he told Bunce. “The point of being geographically stranded … is somewhat deceptive, I find it.”

“A large portion of our population are adults who are self-determining and if they choose to say, ‘This is where I want to spend my day,’ then it’s not our place to interfere,” he said.

CMH board Vice Chair David Parnin defended the Momentum Center, saying it’s saved the mental health system in the long run.

“Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything,” he said. “Adults need to make their own choices. If they’re not capable, then that’s the guardian’s role. We’re trying to get the community to adopt our personal value system.”

VanHorssen said it’s incredibly frustrating to have to continually defend herself and the center.

“It's incredibly troubling,” she said in an interview after the meeting, “that they are board members using the tool of intimidation. To to try to advance their own political agenda.”

“I frankly think it's abusive to have to sit there and hear character assassination in a forum where there's no opportunity to speak to any of those accusations or explain or give context to anything that's been said.

“If you want to come after me, come after me … but don't drag down this whole organization with that. An organization that's doing so good. How many times do I have to answer the same questions?”

She said the issue revolves around the myth that “blended populations” of people with mental illness, addiction and disability shouldn’t intermingle.

“You can say, ‘We shouldn't blend populations.’ But guess what? It works,” she said. “I have provided all of the documentation. What else do you need?”

“Taking down those silos and not making people fit in their little box actually works,” she said. “It actually gives people a better sense of being in the community and being part of a community.”

Van Horssen said that although the Momentum Center will go through the RFP process to renew its contract with the county next fiscal year, she’s not too optimistic based on what she’s hearing from the OI majority on the CMH board.

“We're working to build bridges with people who understand our work and hopefully will come around to support it,” she said.

— Contact Sarah Leach at SentinelLeach@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach. Subscribe to her content at sentinelleach.substack.com.