Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250066
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The lawmakers will hear from at least 50 valley residents in the next two days, many of whom will talk about how community action and community service agencies have helped them. The legislators will hear about such things as Head Start, the Free Clinic of the New River Valley and a "10-foot circle" that 75-year-old Mary Ellen Weeks says has trapped many senior citizens in Floyd County.
When their children leave home and their energy evaporates, many older people live in a lonely "10-foot circle" centered around the living room stove, Weeks said. It's a circle that can trap people as quickly and tightly as any snare.
"What we're trying to do is keep people out of that 10-foot circle as long as we can," said Weeks, who is voter registrar in Floyd County. "Because when they sit in that 10-foot circle, they're sitting there waiting to die."
A van, something that would provide convenient transportation, is just what these people need to expand their boundaries, to get them "interested in living," Weeks said. A van is what she will ask for in Richmond today.
Also going to Richmond, where a rally in support of community action agencies is scheduled for the capitol grounds, is Karen Corboy from Giles County, who has been a community action volunteer for eight years.
"What a terrible, horrible mistake it would be if they cut back substantially on funding," said the former teacher. "It's a wonderful agency."
These New River Valley residents may find at least some of the lawmakers to be a receptive audience. Among the more than 2,000 bills legislators submitted ahead of Monday's deadline was one that would restore $2.15 million in cuts that Allen has proposed for community service agencies. Other bills would provide money for other programs Allen wants to reduce.
That's good news to people like Corboy, who planned to rise at 3:45 a.m. to make the trip to Richmond. "We've got some real danger signals about funding to our agency. I'll stand on my head, I'll do anything to stop it."
Amy Forsyth-Stephens, executive director of the Mental Health Association of the New River Valley, will meet with area legislators Thursday in Richmond. It's something she and her colleagues have done in previous years, and she expects the legislators to listen. "They know us now, and I think in terms of groups that talk to them, we're a fairly nonthreatening entity."
She will tell legislators about "transinstitutionalization," a 10-dollar word that she says could cost Virginia taxpayers a lot more under Allen's budget cuts.
It's the process in which mental health patients are shuffled from one state institution to another. Often, she said, these people wind up in prison.
Mental health treatment for prisoners, which she said the Supreme Court has mandated, can cost as much as $69,000 a year for each inmate. Mental health agencies can do the job cheaper, but their efforts are imperiled by spending cuts.
Lobbying can be "very effective, particularly if you do it with your own legislator," said Lindsay West, a former Montgomery County supervisor and chairman of the state community services board.
She recommends being specific and telling a personal story. And she says legislators may expect to hear from many of their constituents.
"I think more and more people are realizing the effects of the cuts."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB