More than 200 homeless people and their advocates were at the state Capitol on Wednesday to ask legislators not to follow through on proposed cuts to social services that could devastate families already suffering from the economic downturn.
“This is a crucial time in the history of our families and the history of Arizona,” said Bill Black, a staff worker at the Men’s Outreach Shelter in Phoenix. “Legislators will vote whether to protect the most vulnerable families in Arizona or to protect high-income and special-interest tax breaks.”
Black joined representatives of the Central Arizona Shelter Services, the Southwest Behavioral Health Services and the Protecting Arizona’s Families Coalition in asking state legislators not to make cuts that would devastate social-welfare programs.
Jacki Taylor, executive director of the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness, said homelessness has increased drastically since last year. In Maricopa County alone, the homeless population has gone up by 20 percent since 2008, she said.
More than half the homeless population is under 18, she added, and that population is growing rapidly because state budget cuts are severely reducing the scope of the foster-care system.
“Foster care has been cut, and a lot of these kids are coming out of foster care,” Taylor said.
The foster-care system and other social services are all closely linked to homelessness, she said. The Legislature’s $158 million in cuts to the state Department of Economic Security in 2009 have had a severe impact on the homeless population by cutting such services as drug-treatment programs, she said.
“When you take dollars that would impact one level of service, there’s a spillover into other areas,” she said.
Renee Franco, a volunteer at the Terros, a Phoenix-based behavioral-health organization, and a recovering heroin addict, said social programs have the power to make a tremendous difference in people’s lives and to take them off the street. Franco was a client at the treatment center, but he has been clean for nine months. She said she plans to become a full-time employee there.
“Without these programs, I would be out stealing and boosting to support my [heroin] habit,” Franco said.
Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa, attended the event to talk with advocates about the proposed $77 million in cuts to the Department of Economic Security. Ash said he hoped to bring that amount down to a level that would fulfill federal stimulus spending requirements and allow the department to receive federal aid.
But he also said faith-based and charity organizations should be more responsible for helping the poor and destitute than the state, which has many other obligations.
“DES deals with a segment of society that has access to charitable organizations,” Ash said. “There are no charities stepping forward to [fund] education, but there may be some that will make a difference for some of these homeless organizations.”
Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.
