By Amanda Waldroupe, Staff Writer
Four months ago, the proposed cuts to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program threatened to cut an estimated 8,000 from needed assistance to stay in housing, secure work and raise children.
But despite a tight human services budget and a $3.5 billion funding shortfall that the Oregon Legislature had to close, many cuts to the TANF program were avoided. The 60-month time limit, which is how long a family may receive a monthly cash grant of up to $506, was preserved. Gov. John Kitzhaber had proposed an 18-month life-time limit that would have made Oregon the most stringent in the nation.
Funding was restored to other TANF programs as well, including the Parents as Scholars program and programs providing support services to families.
TANF advocates scored another victory in the last two weeks of the Legislature’s session. Oregon received a “bonus” grant from the federal Department of Agriculture for reducing error rates in the state’s food stamp program. $1.4 million of that money is restoring post-TANF payments given to families who leave the TANF program as a result of finding employment. The payments, $50 a month, are designed to help families as they transition to being fully self-sufficient.
TANF is a program reserved for the poorest of Oregon’s poor. It provides a cash benefit for individuals or couples with dependent children to help cover their basic needs while they participate in job training programs, educational programs, and other programs to help them re-enter the work force and become self-sufficient. TANF clients stay in the program for an average of 24 months.
The number of two-parent families in TANF has increased dramatically since the start of the recession; 330 percent since 2007. Overall demand has increased by 57.3 percent.
The extent to which TANF has been preserved is pretty remarkable considering the cuts to other human service programs.
Last week, the Oregon Legislature approved the Department of Human Services’ budget, and legislators sounded clear warnings that Oregon’s safety net is close to unraveling.
“It was a horrendous budget, with horrendous possibilities,” said Rep. Tina Kotek (D-Portland) on the House floor. “It’s barely tolerable now…colleagues, please do not feel comfortable in this budget. It is very dangerous.”
The total DHS budget is $7.97 billion dollars. It is 1.2 percent less than the 2009-2011 budget when increased federal food stamp money is not factored in.
Kotek, who was closed to tears toward the end of her speech, said that potential increased future caseloads, combined with staffing shortages and the likelihood that additional funding will not be available is “creating a very fragile system of human services in this state.”
Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland) was one of the 14 representatives who voted against the budget. “This was a very difficult budget to put together,” he said. “But, the fact is, it’s inadequate.”
The House floor gradually became hushed and silent as Greenlick continued speaking, first about how the governor’s proposed DHS budget was “a disaster,” and the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee’s proposed budget “a catastrophe.”
“Eventually,” said Greenlick, a member of the Ways and Means Human Services Subcommittee, which wrote the DHS budget, “we were able to put $100 million back into it to make it only terrible.”
“We have three basic things to do as a state,” he said. “We have to educate our population. We have to fund public safety, and we have to care for the most vulnerable among us, who cannot care for themselves.”
He criticized the way the state determines human services funding, characterizing the process as determining how much is to be spent on education, then public safety, with “what is left over” left for human services.
“We are basically failing our most vulnerable citizens,” Greenlick said. “That is not a good place to be.”
Look for a column from the Housing Alliance and Neighborhood Partnerships in the up and coming edition on the recent state budget.