May 16, 2003 By Amy Karpinsky 4 min read

The only motivation Jill Rush said she needed before speaking in front of several hundred people in Harrisburg was thinking about the 26,000 Fayette Countians who stand to lose access to human service programs. Rush, program specialist/administrative assistant for the county Office of Human and Community Services, was one of a group of eight representatives from the county to make the trip to Harrisburg Tuesday to speak out against a proposal to drastically slash funding used by human service agencies across the state.

“What got me there was thinking of the 26,000 people from Fayette County who got stripped of services,” Rush said. Although only one legislator spoke at the rally, Rush said the sound resonating inside the rotunda was most certainly enough that the legislators inside could hear. While there were people from different counties across the state, for one hour “we were all together,” Rush said of the rally.

Joining Rush in speaking on behalf of the county were Dexter Smart of the City Mission- Living Stones Inc. and Jami McCahill of the Fayette County Housing Authority.

The rally was dubbed the “One thousand faces of HSDF rally” and was organized by Allegheny County officials to draw attention to the need for program funding.

Locally, seven county agencies that serve 26,436 residents stand to be hurt when the budget goes into effect on June 30. Local officials said that county funding for various programs could drop from $760,633 to $50,000 if the budget that was approved earlier this year by Gov. Ed Rendell is not amended.

The local agencies include Fayette County Community Action, City Mission, Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation (FACT), Fayette County Drug and Alcohol Commission, Fayette County Housing Authority, Fayette County Mental Health-Mental Retardation and Albert Gallatin Human Service Agency. After the rally, county representatives branched out and distributed packets of 24 letters from clients and more than 700 names on petitions against the cuts.

In speaking about the rally on Thursday, Smart said the rally was “about getting the message out.” McCahill said she believes the rally went a long way to get the fund secured. One of the featured speakers included Allegheny County Senator Jim Ferlo, who pledged to introduce a bill to have the fund restored. Hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians across the state stand to lose access to programs if the fund isn’t restored.

McCahill said many of the people who are helped by HSDF funding don’t fit into other funding categories. She said some will lose access to transportation services because they can’t pay shared ride and can’t get to the designated stops. Additionally, the FCHA offers after school programs at different sites to help with tutoring and other programs. In school drug prevention programs will be affected also.

The cuts will impact drug and alcohol programs, information and referral services, transportation, mental health programs and other behavioral health services run by the agencies.

“There’s so many things affected,” McCahill said.

Rush said if the fund isn’t restored the information and referral service will be lost.

“The road map to get services, that’s wiped out too,” she said.

Smart said his agency alone helps between 300 and 400 men, women and children in the county. He said the HSDF fund helps find housing, employments and assistance to move homeless people to self-sufficiency. He said he sees people in the shelter with only two garbage bags and no identification, noting that HSDF funds are critical in helping these people to rebuild their lives.

Smart said there is a whole continuum of services that his clients use that will be affected, including MH/MR and FACT.

“It’s just a domino effect from one agency to another,” he said. He said the agency has been making progress and the number of homeless is finally going down but if the funds go, they’ll be right back to square one.

“For every one homeless person we use two to three other agencies that will be affected by the funding cuts,” Smart said.

Smart said the bottom line is that there will be more to come regarding re-establishment of the fund. “There are legislators that will push this forward,” he said.

Anyone wishing to write in favor of restoring the fund should submit correspondence to the Restore HSDF Coalition, PO Box 16, Hershey, Pa. 17033.