Published: Thursday, May 26, 2011
By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Frank Cirillo and Herb Levine

General Assistance is New Jersey’s safety net program for single individuals. People classified as employable receive $140 per month and those classified as unemployable receive $210. The state budget before the Legislature proposes cuts of $31.5 million.

We understand and support the governor’s decision to incentivize employment for this group, but the vulnerability and diversity of GA recipients suggest that, in the current stalled economic climate, this decision is likely to have negative consequences.
One recommendation is to reduce benefits by $15. A $15-per-person cut may seem small to most, but it is enormous if it comes from a total income of $140 or $210 per month.

The fact is that a significant percentage of those classified as employable (perhaps a third) are not currently able to work and any recommendation needs to take that into consideration. While some may be able to move directly to employment, others suffer from mental illness and/or problems with drugs and alcohol. Many have been recently released from county or state institutions. Many are veterans. Many do not have the follow-through capacity to secure paperwork necessary to be classified as unemployable. Others have limited skills for employment, and when they are employed, they work seasonally as day laborers and earn very little money.

What do these individuals do with their $140 per month? For many of them, it makes the difference between home and homelessness. With $140, they can pay a friend or relative to stay in a spare bed. With $140, they can live with dignity, with a roof over their heads, while they are waiting for veterans’ benefits or federal Supplemental Security Income.

A second proposal is to declare a 30-day delay before people can receive their benefits, so they can pursue employment. At the state Department of Labor One-Stop Career Centers, where these individuals will have to report, this will result in a huge backlog of applicants — many of whom are not employable at all. There will also be an increased burden on emergency shelters, which will no longer be reimbursed for this period, as well as an increased burden on soup kitchens and food pantries, which will have to feed these penniless individuals in increased numbers when resources already are stretched thin.

Rather than adopting this policy for all recipients, we need a screening mechanism that will determine who could benefit from such redirection. For those with no incomes, such as the re-entry population who are leaving jail, this virtually mandates 30 days of homelessness. People will return to the streets and their old connections, at the very time when it is crucial to link them to systems of support.

A third across-the-board proposal to save money is declaring a six-month delay before people can be classified as unemployable, which will hurt the disabled — the most vulnerable among this population. The assumption that this population will become employed if they have to wait six months is not borne out by past experience.

If these proposals pass, we may end up with far more expense in paying for people while they are homeless. When individuals become homeless in New Jersey and seek emergency shelter, the public pays an additional $750 to $1,000 per month in shelter costs and at least $1,500 for those placed in motels. This far exceeds the meager subsidy of $140 or $210 a month.

These cuts are being suggested at the worst possible time. Low-income workers were hard-hit by the recession and they have not yet felt the recovery. That is why there was a 38 percent increase in requests for GA from December 2007 to August 2010.
Rather than slashing away at the framework of the program, we should recommit ourselves to preventing and ending homelessness.

We know that New Jersey is full of good people who understand that we share responsibility for our most vulnerable neighbors. What General Assistance means, in practice, is that we have a collective responsibility, embodied in government, for the “least among us.” Please let your legislators know that these are your values, too.

Frank Cirillo is director of welfare for Mercer County. Herb Levine is executive director of the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness.