Pa. cuts funding for Phila. program for the disabled homeless, By Alfred Lubrano, August 24, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Corbett administration has cut funding for a Philadelphia program nationally lauded as the ‘gold standard’ for helping disabled homeless people get federal benefits. On May 31, the state’s Department of Public Welfare gave Philadelphia’s Homeless Advocacy Project one month’s notice that it was eliminating $722,000 used to help obtain Supplemental Security Income (SSI) money for homeless or near-homeless people who had exceeded their five-year limit for welfare benefits. Many of the people don’t have the mental capacity to work. SSI provides disability income and benefits. The Department of Public Welfare made the cut because the state is ‘reprioritizing’ funding toward programs that emphasize work, DPW spokeswoman Carey Miller said. By taking money from the Homeless Advocacy Project, ‘we will be able to focus better on job placement and retention,’ Miller said…”
Tag: Disability
General Assistance Program – Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania General Assistance program ends today, By Clara Ritger, August 1, 2012, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “With Gerald Ragin’s state cash assistance set to end today, the 46-year-old McKeesport resident will be spending the day with a caseworker, filling out an application for federal disability benefits. Welfare advocates say that he may be waiting a long time for help, because his main option for replacing his monthly state General Assistance checks could take at least a year to enroll. In the meantime, he and 61,000 other Pennsylvanians will no longer receive approximately $200 in monthly benefits due to state budget cuts. Those who qualified for aid through the General Assistance program included disabled or sick unemployed adults without dependent children, domestic violence survivors and adults participating in drug and alcohol treatment programs…”
Health Coverage for the Poor – Pennsylvania
- U.S. agency asks about sharp drop in Pa.’s Medicaid rolls, By Angela Couloumbis, July 12, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Pennsylvania has dropped tens of thousands of people from its Medicaid rolls since last summer – and now the Obama administration wants to know if the state wrongly cut off those benefits. The federal agency that oversees how states administer Medicaid sent a letter last month to the Department of Public Welfare saying initial data showed 130,000 people, including 89,000 children, had been dropped from state Medicaid rolls between August and January. Those people were dropped, noted the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, when DPW was struggling with a backlog, leaving it unable to sort through all the information people had submitted in efforts to qualify for the benefit…”
- Pa. eliminating easy stopgap health coverage for poor, By Miriam Hill, July 9, 2012, Philadelphia Inquirer: “If you are poor in Pennsylvania and temporarily disabled, a health-care worker can fill out a one-page form that qualifies you to receive medical care paid for by the state. But that is changing under a new policy, requiring more paperwork, that Gov. Corbett is implementing, arguing that it will save taxpayers money without denying significant numbers of people medical care. Health-care workers and advocates for the poor, however, say the new policy could leave thousands of people without needed care and drive up medical costs in the long run…”