Cuts are real, cause great harm

It has begun.

According to a story by reporter Bob McCoppin in the July 1 Daily Herald, because of a reduction in state funding, local human service agencies have begun to lay off staff and close programs, denying some of our most vulnerable citizens the help and care they need. His story told of an Aurora social service agency that had to lay off 80 employees and eliminate services for 1,100 individuals with developmental and mental health disabilities.

The situation in the Northwest suburbs is equally bad: The Alexian Brothers community mental health center in Arlington Heights has to lay off 25 employees, almost completely eliminate its psychiatric programs, and eliminate other services to 50% of its clients. Similar cuts are being implemented across the state. Without a full budget 50,000 senior citizens will lose the community care programs they need to stay in their own homes and out of nursing homes; 60,000 preschool children will lose day-care services, threatening their parents' ability to work; 14,000 rape and child sex abuse victims will be denied crisis care; and 57,000 people with mental illness will lose access to mental health services. The list goes on and on.

Some legislators seem to think this budget crisis is imaginary, but the "Doomsday Budget," which is now being implemented thanks to their failure to act, is real and is resulting in real harm to real people. Meanwhile the General Assembly has again adjourned without acting. The result of their refusal to enact the tax increase necessary to fund these vital human services will harm, in some cases irreparably, hundreds of thousands of people. No one likes to pay taxes, but the tax increase needed to prevent these devastating cuts is minuscule when compared to the suffering that will be caused by keeping taxes as they are.

Hugh Brady

National Alliance

on Mental Illness

Barrington Area