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"It is not often that I come before you and find myself speechless, but in my 20 years of work in the human services field I have never seen anything like this," said Cecilia Espinola, human services director in testimony before the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on May 21st. "These cuts would literally tear apart the safety net we have developed here in the county." Since the Great Depression one of the core responsibilities of United States government has been to provide a safety net for poor and vulnerable people. The Social Security Act of 1935 included Social Security and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) as part of the New Deal. In the 1960s as part of the War on Poverty, other significant components were added including Medicare, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The Food Stamp program became part of the safety net in 1964. Social Security and Medicare operate as social insurance largely restricted to disabled people and people 65 and older. Most working families with young children in the home or single working adults remain ineligible for any benefits and although some health services are now provided for low-income children of working parents over 40 million Americans are without any health insurance at all. For 20 years we have seen a devolution of responsibility from the federal government to the states for health care, income security, employment and training programs, and social services and 5 year lifetime caps on welfare benefits for families with children are due to end any support for many households with children soon. Guests discuss the Safety Net; it’s history, where we stand, and how we might mend the net to end or reduce poverty. Guests for this program: Beth Love: http://members.cruzio.com/~hca/ Executive Director of Survivors Healing Center, a non-profit organization that serves survivors of childhood sexual abuse and works to prevent the sexual abuse of children. She is the President of the Human Care Alliance, an association of 86 non-profit health and human service providers in Santa Cruz County. Welcome Beth Love.
Director of the Human Resources Agencyof Santa Cruz County, the county’s umbrella social services, welfare, veterans services, public guardian, and job training agency. Cecilia currently serves as the Vice-President at Large for the California Welfare Directors Association (CWDA) and the Vice-Chairof the Bay Area Social Services Consortium (BASSC). She is a board member of The United Way of Santa Cruz, and the California Social Work Education Center, is a member of the UC Berkeley AdvisoryCommittee for the Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services, as well as a commissioner on the Santa Cruz County Children and Families Commission. Michael K. Brown: http://politics.ucsc.edu/Faculty/amBrown.shtml Professor of Politics at the University of California Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA. Professor Brown has written extensively on race, politics, and welfare reform. His most recent book is “Race, Money, and the American Welfare State”. He is currently completing a co-authored book on racial inequality in the United States that will be published by the University of California Press next year. The host and CAB Inc. producer of the series, Paul Rachuy Brindel,
More Safety Net Links of Interest:
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