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Funding cuts hinder aid efforts for needy
Source:
Cranberry Eagle
Written by:
Jared Stonesifer
Published:
January 18, 2012
Amanda Feltenberger works hard to help the growing number of homeless people and families find assistance in Butler County, but lately she’s been uttering a phrase that makes her heart break.
“Many people are coming to us and there’s nothing we can do for them. And that’s something we absolutely hate to say,” said Feltenberger, who oversees the integration of services under the umbrella of Butler County Human Services.
The number of homeless in the county has skyrocketed in the past several years while funding from the state and federal government has drastically decreased, a trend not likely to be reversed any time soon.
The consequence of decreased funding not even coming close to meeting the heightened demand for assistance is that county agencies are being forced to turn away people who come looking for help.
According to Al Lane, director of the Catholic Charities in Butler, his agency had more than 900 cases of homelessness in 2011 through November, a large number considering in years past the number rarely topped 350 cases.
Lane said he’s seen it all in the last several years, from people living in cars to pregnant women living on the street.
But he can’t help everyone who comes through his doors, leaving him with the only other option of making do with available resources while hoping for a turnaround in funding.
“I have government grants to help about 300 people, but now we’re getting so many requests that we can’t really help them,” Lane said. “We really have to prioritize and maximize our resources. Many come in and say they’re homeless and we have to refer them elsewhere.”
Lane said his agency “literally operates on a shoestring budget” of about $800,000 a year, which includes salaries for 10 employees, three AmeriCorps workers and one part-time staff worker.
Catholic Charities offers many services to the homeless, including a short-term housing program where the agency pays to put people up in hotels. It also does longer-term interim housing programs where the participants are guaranteed access to clothing, nutrition and medical care.
But both financial and material resources aren’t close to being on pace with the need for these services, Lane said.
Feltenberger painted an equally bleak picture of the lack of funding.
Because of its status as a government agency, Butler County Human Services and the affiliated Community Action group are the “primary recipients of funding” for homeless services in the county.
She said her agency alone gets about $840,000 in state and federal money, which is then distributed to Catholic Charities, the Lighthouse Foundation, the Center for Community Resources and the Victims Outreach Intervention Center.
So when Butler County Human Services gets a decrease in state and federal funds, Feltenberger said, the effects ripple down to several other groups.
For instance, she said, her agency used to get $60,000 in federal funds for an emergency food and housing program. This year, the agency got $16,000 to run the same program that has 60 families on a waiting list.
“The supply is definitely not meeting the demand,” she said.
The Rev. Dan Borchert of the Lighthouse Foundation said last year he applied for a $100,000 state grant to help pay for operational costs but got nothing.
Borchert said he too is experiencing a sharp increase in requests for assistance. For example, he said, there are 50 families on a waiting list for a transitional program that only has 11 apartments.
Since each family is permitted to stay for 18 months, Borchert said those further down on the list aren’t likely to receive help any time soon.
“That hurts because number 50 on that list just isn’t going to happen,” he said. “We tell them that, that they’re not going to get in but that we can put them on a waiting list. And they agree to the waiting list, mostly out of desperation I think.
While funding also has decreased, Borchert said residents are doing their part to help the needy and to keep his homeless assistance programs afloat.
“The support from the community this year has been amazing,” he said. “They know we’re hurting and know their neighbors are hurting. It’s just a great community.”
In terms of approaching an increasingly dreary future for funding, Feltenberger and Lane agreed that working together to “plug the gap” is the only viable solution in helping as many homeless people as they can.
One of those initiatives is already under way, Feltenberger said, after her agency partnered with the New Beginnings Free Methodist Church in Butler to offer a winter shelter.
The biggest barriers to these types of programs is that her agency can’t afford to pay people to run the facilities, Feltenberger said, a burden eased when the church offered volunteers.
The shelter is operational and will open for families with children on nights that the temperature is below 25 degrees.
That type of intercommunity cooperation is a necessity these days, Lane said, and is likely to continue to be the norm.
“In Butler County we have all these agencies and groups that work together and get very, very creative in an effort to keep plugging the gaps as best we can,” he said.
“We have to share resources. I guess that’s a necessity nowadays to survive, and that’s how it’s going to have to be.”
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