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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2011)
Street roots March 18, 2011 1 BUDGET, from page 4 completely defunded. It ranges from housing programs, to addiction treatment programs, that programs that provide assistance to people simply, because they earn extremely low incomes. There are many other programs that will be effected by any drastic federal budget cut, but this gives an overview of what’s at stake-and who will be effected. Sally Erickson, Portland’s ending homelessness program manager, points opt that there are “flaps” at the federal level every year regarding whether safety net services will be cut. “This year, it seems a little scarier,” she says. Li says the safety net could be defunded so drastically that “you can’t really deliver anything” in terms of services. People will not only be unable to access services, but there won’t be staff to give those sendees, either. Blackburn says there will not be a way to recover from having the safety net cut so deeply. The damage will be irreparably permanent. As ah example, he points to low-income apartment complexes, which have rental subsidies paid for by federal funding (such as the Community Development Block Grants). .< “Those buildings are not going to sit empty,” 5 FT he says. “They’re going to be converted to some other use o r tom down.” By not providing housing, food, job skills, and . other basic needs to the poorest of the poor now, what will our society look like 20 or 30 years from now? “The community will pay for these decisions in terms of increased stress on emergency services, increased incidents of'violence, and increased crime associated with people who are not getting into treatment services. You will have police running around trying to solve problems that we were trying to solve. You aré going to,have a lot more people dying,” Blackburn says. “It's going to • be shameful.” Blackburn brings up the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, gets to see what his community, Bedford Falls, becomes if he didn’t exist. Bedford Falls’ banker and resident slumlord, Henry Potter, essentially takes over the town and turns the affordable housing Bailey was building into slums, naming it Pottersville. People’s lives become desperate, miserable. ' “We’re all land of like Jimmy Stewart,” Blackburn says. “We.jumped off the bridge. We went to Pottersville, and we got to see what the world would be like. We might end up like Pottersville.” Untitled by AES The winds of change have found me here in a vast field of darkness. Not to worry though, for the mountain of light stand’s not far off. Being surrounded by all this black and fear Matters not, for the words, I do not hear ‘ Some will show fear, and run from their sight, For me however, I look forward to the fight. ' Proposed cuts to social services under the House plan Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) The WIC program is a public health and nutrition service for low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women with infants younger than 12 months, non-breastfeeding women with children under 6 months, and children under 5. Food-assistance is provided to qualifying families and individuate in ppverty.The food assistancesstargeted to the specific health and nutrition n ^ d ^ ofjhe. individual being served, ana can include dairy products," whole grains, fruits and vegetables.. Proposed federal budget cut: $752 million Oregon’s share: Unknown Impacts: Sue Woodbury, the director of Oregon’s WIC program, says approximately 113,000 individuals rely on the program across the state Woodbury says people currently in the program are not cut if there is a budget cut. I t could impact our ability to serve new applicants,” she says. “We would continue to serve pregnant women and infants, ” Woodbury says, but 5-year old children may be eliminated from the program, and other less at-risk groups. Head Start Head Start is an education program serving at-risk children under the age of five and is designed to help children ■ successfully enter kindergarten and. school. The program provides education, health, nutritional, and other services and also engages the child’s ' family in the child’s learning. There are 6,554 Oregon children currently participating in Head Start, according to the state Department of Education. Proposed federal budget cut: $1.1 billion, or 15 percent Oregon’s share: $11.4 million Impacts: As many as 2,000 Oregon . children could be cut from Head Start. David Mandel, the research director of the Children’s Institute, a public policy organization advocating for at-risk Students, points out that Head Start children are at higher risk of not graduating from high school, becoming involved in crime, and are less likely to earn higher incomes. “These kids are only going to be jhree and four once,” Mandel says. “Even if these cuts get restored, there is a whole cohort of children who we’ve denied a really important opportunity. There are impacts on a child’s trajectory that you can make that are so much easier to make in earlier years than it is later on in their life.” ' Substance Abuse and Treatment Block Grant Community Mental Health Services Block Grant This grant helps states pay for substance abuse treatment and prevention programs, including case management, counseling,, and drug and alcohol free housing. This grant is used primarily in Multnomah County to provide transitional housing for severely mental ill adults when they are released from the Oregon State Hospital, the state institution for those with severe mental illnesses. Thefunds Multnomah County receives help pay for the 63 housing units at the Bridgeview, transitional housing for the severely . , mentally ill. Proposed federal budget cut: $113 million Oregon’s share: $312,000 Impacts: Ed Blackburn, the executive . director of the housing and recovery service agency Central City Concern, says funding from this grant helps ' CCC fund Hooper Detox’s sub acute detox center, whieh serves people with severe addictions to alcohol nqt only recover from the alcohol in their body, but access treatment sen/ices.The money also pays for outpatient treatment slots. He estimates that there will be around3,000 admissions to the detox center this year. The center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and Blackburn says it is impossible to simply cut back hours. “These are people who have serious addictions to alcohol and various drugs. It’s not like you get a 10 percent cut and you cut back 10 percent. You can’t say to people in the middle of detox, leave for a few hours and come back,’” Blackburn says. Proposed federal budget cut: $26 million Oregon’s share: $1,114,000 Impacts: Karl Brimner, the director of Multnomah County’s mental health programs, says it is possible that the amount of housing available to adults being released from the State Hospital would become limited. Adults could remain at the State Hospital for-longer periods of time (the State Hospital would not, he says, discharge adults into homelessness). Meet Your Local Branch Manager: “Communities arentjust streets and build ings. 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