by Mark Curnutte
July 20, 2009
from the Cincinnati Enquirer Sunday, July 19 The recession has forced millions of people into joblessness and stressed state-run social service agencies with record unemployment, Medicaid and food stamp claims. Now state agencies are getting hit. Budget cuts in many states, including Ohio, have led to reductions in staffs in county Job & Family Services offices and created delays in the delivery of services. Some recent headlines: • Hamilton County Commissioners last week approved $6.1 million general fund cuts that will lead to layoffs and reduced services. • Butler County’s department of Job & Family Services predicts service reductions because of the new state budget. • The City of Cincinnati, attempting to make up for a $20 million budget deficit, will trim travel, tuition reimbursement, color copies and water coolers. • Unemployment in June topped 10 percent in the District of Columbia and 15 states – including Ohio and Kentucky. The financial snowball has rolled further down this hill onto nonprofit agencies, large and small, such as the Council on Aging of Southwest Ohio and Welcome House in Covington. Like their government counterparts, nonprofit social service agencies are trying to serve record numbers of people, albeit with fewer dollars available through government contracts and funding sources – such as charitable foundations. But nonprofits vow to persevere. With smaller staffs, reduced budgets and more people knocking on their doors, they are considered now as increasingly vital players in trying to help people ravaged by the economic downturn meet their basic needs. “If there is a silver lining in this situation, maybe people … will see the important role that nonprofits play in the lives of many, many people,” said Ruth McCambridge, editor-in-chief of The Nonprofit Quarterly, the Boston-based national trade magazine for nonprofits. Today The Enquirer begins a periodic series that will look at the work being done by some of the dozens of nonprofit agencies in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Advertisement Nonprofits can’t duplicate or replace the services provided by government agencies, but they can fill in cracks. For example, the processing of a food stamp claim took about 10 days to complete before unemployed workers had their benefits. Now those claims take up to 30 days because of reduced staff to process paperwork. “We used to tell people to go to the Freestore (Foodbank) to get 10 days worth of food,” said Moira Weir, director of Hamilton County Job & Family Services. “Now we’re saying they need to get 30 days’ worth.” Welcome House is one of a few hundred regional affiliates of the Freestore and provides services ranging from a food pantry to emergency shelter. It is experiencing an increase in demand for services from people who once earned higher incomes than the regular clientele. These new clients need food and help paying utility bills. In some cases, former donors have become those in need of donations. “We’re meeting the gap with the resources we have,” said Linda Young, executive director. “But any time – including now – that the system doesn’t work well and isn’t immediately responsive to clients’ needs, we feel it.” In Clermont County, the caseload for food stamps is almost three times greater than it was in 2001, said JFS director Tim McCartney. The number of employees is down 11 to 210 overall, and the staff that processes food-stamp cases has fallen from 38 to 34 – while the caseload is up 940 families to almost 6,200 from December 2007. In late May, representatives of 20 nonprofits met in Norwood to explain how they had used emergency grants from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. The foundation raised and distributed more than $965,000 in a period of six weeks in the Weathering the Economic Storm Fund. Personnel were needed to work with the greater numbers of clients. “To a nonprofit, staff is everything,” said Nonprofit Quarterly’s McCambridge. “To lose staff is to lose quality people.” Child Focus Inc. of Clermont County is using its $42,362 to hire a family services worker for 24 hours over 52 weeks to help families dealing with financial problems to get services and assistance through the state. Advertisement At the Faith Community Pharmacy of Crescent Springs, formerly the St. Vincent de Paul Pharmacy, half of the $50,000 grant was used to pay for pharmacists’ time and the other half to purchase medicine. Organizers say the grant is being parlayed into $300,000 worth of services for clients. Brighton Center, Inc., used its grant to hire two part-time support advocates to work 25 hours a week in its Covington and Florence locations to help newly laid-off workers access emergency assistance services. Many of the newly unemployed were from the middle-class and unfamiliar, reluctant and embarrassed to access government services. Other nonprofits – such as Protect My Kentucky Home, Legal Aid societies in Ohio and Kentucky and ACT – are using grants to expand programs to help financially distressed families avoid foreclosure. The Council on Aging of Southern Ohio used its $50,000 emergency grant to fund its program to provide free rides for clients to medical appointments. In 2008, using multiple funding sources, including State Community Services, the local council on again provided 265,047 rides for the elderly and disabled people in five counties – Hamilton, Butler, Clermont, Warren and Clinton counties – to see doctors or for other medical services. The State Community Services fund, though, was cut 30 percent in the new Ohio budget, said Laurie Petrie, council communications director. Marietta Drewes, 93, lives in a house she owns in North College Hill. She needs three rides a week to get kidney dialysis at an office in Springfield Township. It’s only an 8-minute trip, but it would inaccessible without the service provided by the Council on Aging. Her daughter, who works nearby, drives her home. “I’m on a fixed income, below poverty,” Drewes said. “I have a small house. I don’t go out. I don’t need much. I feel rich. But I need the rides.” The increased demand and decreased funding come hand in hand. “The heightened need comes at the exact point the economy is depressed,” McCambridge said.