Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Allen announced the cut this week as part of an extensive plan to reduce state spending, build new prisons and lower taxes by $2billion over the next five years.
Since the 1940s, the general relief program has provided emergency and nonemergency assistance to people caught in financial binds. The program is funded by state and local money.
But in the past 10 to 15 years, the state's portion of program funding - now 62.5 percent - has dwindled to the point where some localities have elected not to participate or to offer only emergency assistance.
Emergency general relief typically is used for rent payments, utility cutoffs, prescriptions and burials of indigents.
Nonemergency funds - what Allen has proposed cutting - are available to people who have no other resources and are awaiting Social Security disability benefits or have been rendered unemployable temporarily by an injury.
The Roanoke County, Franklin County and Montgomery County social-services departments offer only emergency assistance and would not likely be affected by the proposed cut. But the Roanoke Department of Social Services - which offers both emergency and nonemergency assistance - would.
A cut in nonemergency general relief would eliminate 75 percent of the $300,000 the department receives from the state in general relief funds, said Corinne Gott, department director. The department commits 25 percent of the general relief funds it receives to emergency assistance.
"People use this money as a way to live while they are waiting for [Social Security], which can take three to six months or two to three years," Gott said. "If this money is pulled from them, frankly I don't know how they will make it. It's not much money to begin with, but it does give them a way to survive."
About 150 Roanoke residents receive nonemergency general relief, said Bruce Stultz, an eligibility supervisor for the department. They receive a maximum of $145 per month, he said.
Recipients of short-term temporary assistance - those with a disability that temporarily prevents them from working - can get a maximum of three months' nonemergency general relief during a 12-month period. Permanently disabled recipients who are awaiting Social Security disability benefits can get a maximum of 12 months' relief.
Eliminating any category of general relief funds means more people are going to need the services of state community action agencies, said Judy Mason, executive director of the Richmond-based Virginia Council Against Poverty.
But Allen's proposal includes cutting $2.1million in state funding to Virginia's 26 community action agencies in Virginia, Mason said. Eliminate that money, and "who are these people going to turn to?'' she asked.
"The fact of the matter is that there are folks who are in need of assistance. Even on general relief, those folks are at risk. Taking away the only stable income that they have puts them at risk, makes them a part of community action's population."
The $2.1million that Mason referred to - Community Service Block Grant money - is core money for community action agencies, which used it to leverage more than $21million in additional money this year.
Total Action Against Poverty, for example, used its nearly $140,000 share of state block grant money to bring in another $340,000 from other sources. That, combined with $650,000 in federal money, provides the base for TAP's $9 million budget.
by CNB