Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994 TAG: 9412210048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ted Edlich, TAP's executive director, said the governor's proposals would eliminate the state's Community Service Block Grant funding, a crucial building block for many programs of his agency and about 25 others in Virginia.
TAP uses nearly $140,000 in the block grant funds each year to bring in another $300,000 from private sources.
So even though the state money is a small chunk of TAP's $9 million budget, it is a crucial chunk because it gives TAP the leverage to ask for money from many other sources, Edlich said. With the state money at risk, the other funding becomes much more difficult to obtain, he said.
The money is used for youth services, employment-training services, human resources, housing and community-development programs, he said.
Edlich said he was baffled as to why Allen would propose to overhaul the state's welfare system by moving people off welfare and into the work force, while at the same time cutting funding for programs that help people become self-sufficient.
Last week, Allen unveiled a far-reaching welfare-reform proposal that would encourage people into self-sufficiency and off the welfare rolls by putting a two-year limit on benefits.
"It's hard to understand why this administration, which says it is concerned with helping people get on their feet, would want to cut that funding," Edlich said.
Edlich said he and representatives from other state community-action agencies were called Dec. 12 to a special meeting with Kay Coles James, state secretary of health and human resources.
"None of this came up," Edlich said. James, in fact, recognized the agencies for their work, he said.
Edlich estimated that the loss of state funding would have the following impact:
702 families - 2,165 individuals - would lose services or educational opportunities.
310 families would not be able to apply for for weatherization, housing and indoor plumbing services, emergency services and assessment for education needs and programs.
224 families would not receive counseling, supportive services and/or emergency services.
The TAP Women's Resource Center, a center for victims of domestic violence, likely would close.
"These programs are a bridge" from poverty to self-sufficiency, Edlich said. "Hopefully, this is just an oversight."
Cabell Brand, who founded TAP 30 years ago and is chairman of its board of directors, said recently that the focus of TAP and other community-action agencies is to get people through 12 years of school and get them jobs.
Without that, "there could be more school dropouts, more health problems, more crime, more run-down neighborhoods and a less-trained work force," all of which could cost more in public funding, he said.
The trend in Richmond and in Washington is to cut funding for the poor, Brand said.
"If both of those [funding sources] are cut - and the Republicans are talking of doing that - TAP's dead."
Staff writer Cathryn McCue provided information for this story.
by CNB