The June 22 press release from DC City Council Member Jim Graham’s office was only four sentences long. There was no mistaking the urgency in its tone.
“Just minutes ago — late on a Friday afternoon — the chief financial officer release information that there was no new revenue for FY 12.
“This means that the items on the Wish List, which were part of the FY13 budget, cannot be funded.
“The immediate impact is that there will be no $7 to restore homeless cuts and no $14 million for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) purposes.
“We have been dealt a major blow to the DC safety net and poor people.”
Graham was reacting to the news that revenue estimates of the city’s Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi remain unchanged from February. The news meant there would be no additional revenues, at least until September, to be steered toward items left out of the city budget: $7 million to keep mens’ and womens’ homeless shelters open year round; $14 million to buy another year for welfare families facing sanctions that would sharply reduce their benefit checks.
“Members of the council made up a list of what they would do if they got more money,” said David Umansky, a spokesman for the CFO. “They didn’t get more money. With the shape the economy is in, the CFO said I’m not changing my estimate.”
Advocates who spoke out for safety net programs and recently celebrated the passage of a city budget that they believed came with assurances of adequate funding for such programs were sent scrambling to organize for another fight.
“It was kind of a bomb that was dropped,” said Will Merrifield, a staff attorney for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. “We are trying to figure out the best way to get the money.” Ed Lazere of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute said the money won’t be easy to find. “There is chance everything could be OK with the next revenue forecast” in September, he said. But with the uncertainty of the world and national economies affecting the city’s revenues, there are no guarantees, he added. “It’s very disconcerting.”
On Friday June 29, a week after he sent out his press release, Graham was still worried. Without the $7 million for homeless services, 1,204 shelter beds would be lost during non-winter months. Without the $14 million in welfare funds, 7,000 families will see their benefits cut by 25 percent. The hardest hit will be the residents with no say in the matter, Graham predicted.
“This will affect 11,000 children under the age of 13.”
