BUFFALO, N.Y. — Save the Michaels of the World, a Western New York-based comprehensive addiction services provider, says it gets roughly 50,000 calls from people seeking treatment each year and serves more than 30,000 people annually.

However, President Avi Israel said it's becoming more and more difficult to maintain and recruit staff.

"When we hire employees, we have to compete with other agencies that charge. Everything that Save the Michaels does is free," Israel said.

He said New York lawmakers have kept funding for providers flat for the past seven years as families and advocates have grown frustrated over the state's seeming unwillingness to use opioid settlement funds. He drove to Albany Thursday to lobby legislators. 

"Some people are going to die and that's the problem that we have right now is nobody wants to pay attention,” Israel said. “Nobody's willing to pay attention to a problem that's been with us since man has learned to walk upright.”

Former state Office of Addiction Services and Supports general counsel Rob Kent, who also worked for the Biden administration, wrote an editorial published Thursday motivated by an email he received from another provider.

"He's like, ‘we're in trouble. I don't mean real, normal trouble, I mean serious trouble. Our insurance premiums are going up 20-40%. We can't hire staff. The rates don't meet the cost of the care,’" Kent said.

Kent is advocating for the state to use a portion of settlement funds to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates, to develop a workforce plan to increase recruitment and support a meaningful cost of living raise for those in the human services field.

He said lawmakers should also pass a bill to stop insurers from clawing back past payments and use money from expanded gambling initiatives and increased access to alcohol to expand prevention and treatment programs. 

"When issues come up for the legislative folks, we don't need you to support it, we need you to say, ‘this needs to be addressed in whatever we do or I'm not going to vote for it.’ That's an advocate," Kent said.

In the meantime, the federal government notified providers late last month it was terminating contracts for grants awarded during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, 23 states, including New York, challenged the move in court.

Israel said his next stop is Washington, D.C., to speak with Congress directly.

"We're going to try to make sure the president does not take away the money that was promised during COVID,” he said. “He promised that money to help people with addiction and mental health. We would like him to restore that money back.”