A show of force

Yesterday, members of the statewide coalition PA Cares for All held a rally in the Capitol Rotunda to call attention to the suffering of the Commonwealth’s poorest, more disadvantaged citizens, who have been hard hit by the recession and untouched by any economic recovery.

Core concerns were the elimination of General Assistance (GA) and cuts to Human Services Development funding, which will leave more than 68,000 of these citizens without the most basic subsistence and will increase demand for homeless shelters, emergency room services, fire and police – all at significantly greater cost than GA itself.

General Assistance is a safety net program of last resort that offers people with disabilities a tiny subsistence grant that enables them to participate in treatment, rent a room in a boarding house or find a shelter bed.  Women fleeing abuse use it as a lifeline when they escape their abusers.  Roughly 68,000 people in every county use the program together with Medical Assistance (MA) to avoid homelessness and build a better life for themselves. Governor Corbett has proposed eliminating both GA and most MA benefits.

The Human Services Development Fund (HSDF) is a proposed block grant that takes proven programs that work and lumps them into a block grant with no goals or plan and then cuts services by 20 percent.

Speakers included:
•         State Representative Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks County)
•         Liz Hersh, executive director, Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania
•         Delaware County senior Julie Schemp, Philadelphia consumer affairs director Lance Haver, and parent advocate Elaine Harris Fulton –
•         Tony Ross, United Way of PA
•         Michael Froehlich, Community Legal Services and PA Cares for All
•         Lyn Cooper, Human Services from Kittatinny, PA
•         Alan Jennings, Lehigh Valley Budget Coalition

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