part 2:
The Safety Net
With funding cuts and greater need, it’s a stop-gap measure at best
There’s “a tremendous sense of despair” out there; people feel like they “don’t have any options.”
The recent presidential campaign highlighted a great philosophical divide over social programs for the very poor. Most Democrats believe government’s job is to provide services for the country’s most vulnerable, though they accede to the importance of making those services cost-effective and efficient, a virtue not always associated with government endeavors. Republican rhetoric has characterized these safety nets as hammocks — places where lazy slackers can comfortably rest while sucking the productive part of the economy dry.
An economic crisis and four years of a divided Congress have led to drastic cuts in social services at every level of government. Private and non-profit organizations expected to take up the slack have had to do it on less funding.
In Ulster County, Family’s Michael Berg said the system was strained. It shows. “What’s sad is the food quality we have isn’t always the best,” he said. The Rondout Valley Growers’ Association donates fresh produce to Family, “but we’ve got no access to freezers big enough to allow us to preserve some of that food for the winter months.”
The shelters are at capacity. Berg said there was a list of as many as 70 people waiting to get into the battered persons program. Domestic violence seems to thrive in a bad economy.
“We now have eight weekly groups in the batterers’ program,” said Berg. “We had to add two. But the little funding we got from the county has been cut. We’re always looking for grants for these programs but we can’t find any.”
A 2010 New York Times article pointed out that domestic violence rates had been dropping before the recession hit. They’re on the rise again.
As we mentioned last week, Diane Reeder at Queens Galley in Kingston is seeing more people lining up for meals than ever before, and they are a whole new group of clients, people who never thought they’d need a soup kitchen.
County takeover
If you ask assemblyman Kevin Cahill about the straining safety net, be ready for a long discussion of not only the immediate issue but of the reasons it exists.
“During the Clinton administration,” he explained, “there was a similar atmosphere: an increased need for social services and a shrinking willingness of government to meet that need. So the administration changed entitlement programs to bridge programs — programs that led to self-sufficiency. So there is a third way beyond fund-these-programs or don’t-fund-them: change them.”
The “general welfare clause” in the state constitution, Cahill pointed out, makes the safety net in New York different from that in any other state. In New York, the state is obligated to provide for the general welfare.
It’s been done by shifting the cost of some welfare programs to the counties. And in Ulster County, alone in the state, the cost of what used to be called home relief has been shared by municipalities. County executive Michael Hein has proposed a graduated county takeover of those programs. He’s proposing to shoulder a burden other counties have found a budget-buster. The state will be phasing out the county payments over a three-year period.
Town of Ulster supervisor James Quigley said the shift is something for which the towns have been asking for years, and his town’s 2012-2013 budget represents a leap of faith that treats the proposal as though it were a fait accompli.
“If it doesn’t happen, we’re in trouble,” Quigley admitted. “But this budget signals my desires. Several towns over the last two years have joined in taking actions that focused the legislature and the county executive on the seriousness of this issue for towns. We’ve taken a lot of heat, and we’ve taken a beating in the newspapers for not paying our bills. But we’re helping to bring about a solution to a problem that has existed for years.”
One answer to the problem of skyrocketing social-program costs, Cahill suggested, was looking to the local organizations that are already doing the work. “People like Michael Berg and Diane Reeder do amazing things with just a little money,” said Cahill. “That’s because they absorb the blow for the rest of us, and they make it happen. If anyone else was doing what they do, there would be a massive cost. So my first suggestion would be to listen when they ask for more funding — don’t turn them down so quickly.”
Ten thousand meals monthly
The nearly decade-old Queens Galley has been operating full throttle while struggling with issues connected to the Washington Avenue building in which it’s housed. It’s trying to raise money to buy the building. Reeder hopes to raise $100,000 by December 1, when a window to own the property closes.
“We’re serving well over 10,000 meals a month,” she said. “It’s up forty percent from five years ago. We’re seeing people who have been out of work a long time, [and] then find a job but are underemployed. People over 50 in particular are finding it really hard to find work in their fields, work that pays even close to what they used to make.”
“This is the impact of a system that relies on food pantries,” said Family’s Berg. “But I will say the people are remarkably resilient. They have potential. They just need confidence to do better.”
