Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Minnesota's Fraying Safety Net

OK, I'm feeling everyone's pain this morning. These stories are happening everywhere. States need to cut back, but people's lives are at stake. We all need to advocate more than before and educate officials about the impact of looming budget cuts.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- For decades, Minnesota has relied on people like Joyce Hagen to deliver care to its most vulnerable residents.
A social worker with Lutheran Social Service, Hagen oversees 26 group homes that support developmentally disabled adults in the Twin Cities. Her staff not only dispenses medication, cooks and take residents to the doctor, but tight budgets are now forcing them to clip coupons and look for other savings. One group home manager has gone to the extreme of concocting homemade laundry detergent, which costs just a penny and a half per load.
"I'm worried," Hagen said recently. "I don't know where else to cut."
More than a million needy Minnesotans rely on the state's taxpayer-supported safety net, most of them low-income seniors, disabled persons and children who need health care and other services. But the crushing combination of a bad economy and the growing needs of an aging population are stretching the system like never before.

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