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. Communities are thriving places
where cultures, commerce and souls grow
stronger together.”
-M ary
At Albina Community Bank the most ordinary
Mary Edmeades
financial transaction can have an extraordinary
Social impact Banking
impact on our local community.
■ 503.445.2155
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