Social services on the edge<\/p>\n
Beyond the classroom, nonprofits contracted by state and local governments to provide assistance related to homelessness, mental health and other social services also expressed relief that a deal had been agreed to. However, they say the budget stalemate destabilized some of the state\u2019s most essential services and caused long-term damage.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jeannine L. Lisitski, CEO of Mental Health Partnerships, said her organization had to rely on an expanded line of credit to stay afloat.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven on our best day, the nonprofit sector is really strained,\u201d she said. \u201cYou get to a point where your line of credit is at the end. You have to worry about whether you\u2019re going to be able to pay staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that while larger organizations like hers were fortunate to have credit to fall back on, many smaller groups and shelters may never fully recover \u2014 and the loss of staff poses a serious threat to their long-term stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they\u2019re gone, that\u2019s it, they\u2019re gone,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we lose that expertise. It just destabilizes the whole entire provider community and our ability to respond to the people that need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennifer King, executive director of the Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, said the delay threatened to derail critical recovery-support programs. Several counties informed her agency that payments could be cut by 50% \u2014 or eliminated entirely \u2014 starting this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was starting to be a time of real concern,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had to do some real planning for when this would impact payroll.\u201d<\/p>\n
King said the uncertainty posed a unique threat because recovery workers are themselves in recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just that services would be paused,\u201d she said. \u201cEngagement and trust would be rocked \u2026 and a disruption to staff who are in recovery would\u2019ve been really concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitski said she thinks it\u2019s unfair that service providers aren\u2019t paid while state employees are, adding that she would like to see politicians go without pay during budget impasses as a way of motivating them to find a resolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely going to advocate that something changes for the future,\u201d Lisitski said. \u201cWe should never have to go through this again. We\u2019d really like Harrisburg to see the impact on people who don\u2019t have a voice. We see the anguish in their eyes when we tell them we don\u2019t have a place for them tonight. And I just want the legislators to see that and the [Shapiro] administration to see it and to treat it like it\u2019s a top-level emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisitski also noted that the new budget reflected a \u201csmall\u201d decrease in funding for mental health services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social services on the edge Beyond the classroom, nonprofits contracted by state and local governments to provide assistance…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,84126,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-374841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-budget","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}