Rainbow Health closure leaves employees, community looking for answers

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - For four years, Rik Kutcher has been a full-time employee at Rainbow Health.

Now he is out of a job after the clinic suddenly closed its doors for good late last week.

"Initially I was shocked. We were all shocked. I immediately started filing for unemployment and that is not going to match with my income to pay my rent and pay all my bills, so it's nerve wracking," Kutcher told FOX 9.

Kutcher is one of 85 employees who are scrambling after the board of directors told them Rainbow Health could no longer pay them after last Thursday.

He says employees had been asking questions about the organization's financial situation for months, but to no avail.

"This is still fresh. This is still new. We don't have a lot of answers. Beyond that, we don't even have answers from the board about what happened. How did it happen? How did it get to this point where we're doing fine a few years ago, and now we have nothing, and we suddenly have to let you all go," said Kutcher.

Kutcher says as frustrating as it is to not have answers about what led to the decision to close for themselves, it's even worse for their clients who are wondering where they will receive the services they have come to rely on.

"Even if the other agency in town that does a lot of this work, the Aliveness Project, even if they can take on some clients, do they have the capacity to take all of them on and right away," said Kutcher.

Above all, Kutcher says Rainbow Health's closing will leave a hole in the state's LGBTQ community.

"Its just heartbreaking and I don't get emotional and many of us have felt that way these last several days," said Kutcher.