Stand Together with Minnesotans who rely on General Assistance and MFIP:
Hold 11:45 a.m. Thursday open on your calendar
Reserve time on your calendar to be at the Capitol at 11:45 a.m. Thursday.
The MN House of Representatives unveils its Human Services budget on Wednesday. If that budget adopts either the Governor’s proposal to eliminate General Assistance or to move 7000 families with disabled parents or children off MFIP, we need you at the Capitol. We need to let policy makers know that the same outrage and energy generated by the effort to eliminate health care coverage for those with serious illnesses and disabilities is still there when the proposal is to eliminate the meager income assistance the state offers the same Minnesotans.
If those cuts are in the House budget, there will be news conference at noon by Stand Together Minnesota and then we gather outside the Human Services hearing room. Affirmative Options has joined scores of other organizations in forming Stand Together Minnesota – a coalition to advocate for our friends and neighbors with serious illnesses or disabilities living on very low incomes. We see proposals to eliminate income assistance as a continuation of the efforts to eliminate health care. The campaign is not for specific programs and their rules that divide up households between those with and without children. Stand Together Minnesota is a campaign that asserts that our state’s budget problems are not so big that we would abandon those with the biggest challenges, especially during a recession.
Details will follow -- where to gather, where to find parking – and a confirmation that we will indeed be gathering. HOLD THE DATE AND TIME FOR NOW. If the House budget does not target General Assistance and MFIP, our presence won’t be necessary – for now.
Background
General Assistance provides income assistance of $203 a month for a single adult and $260 a month for a married couple to adults who are seriously ill or disabled in Minnesota and living below poverty. The Governor’s proposal is to eliminate that assistance and use some of the funds to reinstitute an emergency program offering once a year assistance to adults facing homelessness. For more information about this proposal and its impact, click here.
Families with disabled parents or children living in poverty will be asked to live at deep poverty level on the family member’s federal disability support of less than $700 a month under the Governor’s proposal to treat that disability support as income and eliminate the state’s cash assistance to those families through the Minnesota Family Investment Program. Another 900 families with disabled children or spouses will lose all or some of their child care assistance, that helps pay their child care costs while they are in work preparation activities or working in low wage jobs. For more information about this proposal and its impact, click here
