Cash assistance program ending
Recipients unsure how they’ll get by
Marla Williams is worried. Ms. Williams, 48, is battling a number of health conditions — among them chronic asthma, diabetes and congestive heart failure — that have left her unable to work.
“If I could work a full- time job right now, I would,” said Ms. Williams, who was a hospital housekeeper before she had to stop working.
This week, barring court intervention, she will lose her only cash income when a state assistance program ends.
“When I got that letter in the mail, my heart dropped,” she said, speaking last week in her West Mifflin apartment, where a host of medicines and inhalers sat on her glass table.
In what was among the most contentious battles of the state budget, legislators voted last month to end the General Assistance program, which had provided $ 205 monthly to Ms. Williams and more than 11,000 other Pennsylvanians.
Despite the program’s small size — approximately $ 50 million in a $ 34 billion general fund budget — it led to protests in front of the governor’s home and was the focus of a shouting match on the floor of the state Senate that turned into a viral video.
General Assistance primarily aids adults who are unable to work and are awaiting a decision on federal disability assistance from the Social Security Administration, like Ms. Williams. Such decisions can take as long as two years.
Advocates say the program is a small but vital source of cash for people who might receive Medical Assistance or food stamps, but who
still need cash to pay for essential items. Food stamps can’t be used to purchase nonfood items, such as hygiene products.
Her General Assistance went to items such as laundry detergent or other cleaning supplies, toilet paper, copays on her inhalers, and a tithe to her church — “I give the Lord his 10%,” Ms. Williams said.
Similarly, Carolyn Georgia, 61, of Hazelwood, now undergoing immunotherapy for lung cancer, is also awaiting a decision from the Social Security Administration.
The program’s end “leaves me with zero income, period,” she said. She is looking at various local charities to see what other kind of assistance might be available.
She said she used General Assistance funds for things such as cleaning products, toilet paper and bus fare.
But what advocates say makes the program so needed — the flexibility of cash that allows people to buy what they need or can’t obtain through other assistance programs — is likely what doomed it politically.
Republican legislators, the majority party in the House and Senate, attacked the program as being unaccountable and subject to fraud.
“The issue in this program is accountability,” said Rep. Greg Rothman, R- Cumberland, arguing in a House floor debate over ending the cash assistance.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed the bill to end the program, which was paired legislatively with some hospital funding.
The program will end Thursday, unless advocacy groups Community Legal Services and Disability Rights Pennsylvania succeed in getting a court injunction to halt the program’s demise. Some legislators have introduced a bill to establish a similar program, called the Emergency Relief Program.
Legislators ended General Assistance once before, in 2012. A legal battle ensued then, as well, and after years in the courts, the program was reinstated last year following a state Supreme Court ruling that said legislators had eliminated it in an unconstitutional way.
The program also helps youths aging out of foster care who have no family support, people unable to work due to entering drug or alcohol treatment, and women leaving domestic violence situations.
“Most people who receive General Assistance rely on it as a temporary safety net in times of crisis,” Marc Cherna, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said in a sworn statement submitted as part of the litigation filed last week.
“I always worked, up until this happened ... I have always worked. I didn’t exactly plan on being ill,” said Tammi Lawton, 60, another local General Assistance recipient who has also applied for federal disability assistance.
When the program ended in 2012, it led to greater housing instability, people missing appointments because they couldn’t afford transportation or medical copays, and delays in family reunification for families with children in foster care, Mr. Cherna’s statement said.
If it ends again, Mr. Cherna said, his agency “expects to see similar impacts ... residents will have a harder time maintaining stable housing, accessing transportation and critical services, and will see overall negative impacts to their health and well- being.”
“I always worked,” Ms. Williams said. “I always had money to pay my bills, I’m at a loss right now ... the only person who can help me out right now is Jesus.”