New Foundation Center received notice from DMH of its budget cuts. Overall they amount to 34% of our total DMH/ORS contract ($562,725 of the $1,615,093 total). This doomsday budget eliminates several DMH/ORS programs in their entirety.
What is the impact? Some scenarios:
There are 41 regular employees. 34% of them is 14 people.
There are 170 members. 34% of them is 58 people with serious mental illness who can't go to another agency because they reduced services too.
There are 49 residents (not counting children). 34% of them is nearly 17 people with serious mental illness homeless. To afford a one bedroom apartment they need 140.3% of their monthly SSI check ($637) to pay the rent.
These cuts may be very real . Until there is a signed budget, we can act to prevent or reduce their traumatic effects. Please contact your legislators and tell them your position on these crippling cuts to human services. Tell them your ideas on what combination of cost cutting and raising additional revenue can keep our social service, education and community services stable.
Go to www.il.gov to learn your representative's contact information.
