[Sca-cooks] A plea for help, long, off topic, particularly for folks in Illinois

[Gorgeous Muiredach]

Dear friends,

I apologize for an off topic post.  The issue is of so much importance that
I feel I must post it.  This is a plea for assistance addressed to the
folks in Illinois.

In his recent proposed budget, Governor Ryan slashed over $30 million in
the Home Service Program (HSP) of the Department of Human Services / Office
of Rehabilitation Services.  This program pays for Personal Assistants (PA)
to work with people with disabilities and assist them with tasks of daily
living that they would do for themselves, if they didn't have a
disability.  Other name you may have heard for PA's would be care
attendant, personal attendant, caretaker, caregiver, etc.

Currently, PA's receive the "chic" sum of $7/hour from the state for the
very important work they do.  This is ridiculous, but that's not even where
the problem lays just now.

The head of HSP sent his plan to the governor today as to how he proposed
to come within budget.  Two major propositions are:

To cut all service plans by 3 hours per week
And
Hold all consumers at their current hours (after the above cut), with
increases only being allowed for health or safety issues

As it stands, people with disabilities receiving HSP services often have a
hard time getting by with the small number of hours they are
receiving.  For many people, the direct, unavoidable impact of a cut in
service is to end up in a nursing home, even if they are in their 20's,
30's or 40's.  This is a very real danger.

My step daughter who was told by the doctors that she'd never walk, never
talk, never be able to live independently has lived on her own between 94
of 2001.  Eventually her disability became more involved and she needed HSP
services, but for some reason, HSP deemed her non eligible.  She is now
stuck in a nursing home.  She is 27 years old.  This is one of many
examples I could give you as to the importance of this topic.

There are currently over 30,000 people receiving direct services from HSP,
and uncountable others that benefit from this program.

YOU CAN HELP!

And it would not even take much of your time, unless you want to get really
involved.  Please contact your legislators and let them know that you
oppose the cut in funding to the Home Service Program of DHS/ORS.  If you
can send them a brief letter on that topic, that is even better.  If you
have the inclination to get more involved in this battle, or have any
questions about this, please feel free to email me directly.  My work email
is best for this:  nsteenhout at progresscil.org

I am not wanting to start a public debate on this list on this topic, as it
is not the purpose of the list.  If you want to debate the issue, please
contact me PRIVATELY at the above address.

If you do not know who your legislators are, you can find out at:
http://www.legis.state.il.us/index.html

Thank you for your time, and THANK YOU for taking the time to write your
legislators.





Gorgeous Muiredach
Rokkehealden Shire
Middle Kingdom
aka
Nicolas Steenhout
"You must deal with me as I think of myself" J. Hockenberry