An incorrect number slipped into Monday's column on Governor Glendening's shortsighted decision to abolish Maryland's Disability Assistance and Loan Program. The state, in a report issued to members of the General Assembly last week, said about 61 percent of disabled adults who receive the $157 monthly DALP grants eventually are found eligible for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Other DALP recipients, who seek SSI with the help of the Maryland Disability Law Center, are successful about 90 percent of the time -- not 99 percent of the time, as stated here Monday. This columnist regrets the error. Too bad the governor doesn't regret his.
As for the lieutenant governor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, perhaps she is having regrets of her own. She is hooked up with a man who, in one of his first acts as governor, cut a large hole in the state's safety net for the disabled poor. If the $34.7 million for DALP goes -- the General Assembly could restore it only by cutting something else in the state budget -- Maryland will become one of eight states without this kind of public assistance. (The others are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming.)
The other day in Annapolis, when she was hounded by advocates for the homeless and the disabled while trying to defend the indefensible DALP cut, Townsend might have resisted wishing (and offending) everyone with a "Happy Valentine's Day." She might have been better off promising to be the governor's conscience, a voice for the helpless even if it goes unheard.
One could describe Parris Glendening's decision to cut the already-pared state program that supports poor, disabled adults callous and politically cynical, but I suspect that the state's 59th governor would be unimpressed. He would dismiss it as emotional argument, having to do with conscience or some such. Our man in Annapolis -- evidently one of those "new Democrats" -- prefers to see government as an equation, a numbers game. His purpose in life appears to be fiscal prudence. So we will challenge his poor decision to end DALP (Disability Assistance and Loan Program) on those terms.
After all, any man who would say the following is obviously unapproachable on humanitarian grounds: "It just does not make sense for us to nip and tuck and cut our priorities of education, safe streets, business growth and jobs to support a $48 million Maryland-only welfare system."
Notice the use of the word "welfare." Glendening knows it causes a visceral reaction and evokes images of women and children caught in a cycle of dependency. He knows that the public clamors for limitations on government support for able-bodied adults. And he knows that putting DALP under welfare's shabby umbrella makes this cut a breeze in today's budget-cutting climate. That's why his decision to abolish DALP is a cynical one.
Glendening knows that DALP is not about able-bodied adults. He knows the program has strict limitations, that it benefits a "niche needy." And, unless he is ill-informed, he knows that the burden of funding DALP is not Maryland's alone. Calling DALP "welfare" is dishonest, given that word's modern connotation.
To qualify for a $157 monthly grant through DALP, a person must:
1. Have a "medically verifiable total disability" and be unable to work. (DALP's 21,000 recipients are HIV-positive or have full-blown AIDS; they have mental illnesses, cardiovascular disease, muscular-skeletal disabilities, chronic respiratory ailments, diabetes. About 40 percent abuse drugs or alcohol, though the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported last month that, overall, only about 7 percent were disabled solely because of substance abuse. A young man I interviewed in a Baltimore shelter was unemployed, had cancer and was counting on the state grant to get him through each month.)
2. Have no other source of income.
3. Be a citizen.
The DALP grants are limited to 12 months in a 36-month period unless the recipient is:
1. Pursuing a claim for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) from the federal government.
2. Participating in a vocational rehabilitation program.
3. Pursuing a claim for disability compensation and agrees to repay the grants.
So this is, by design, a temporary program. With the state's help, recipients of DALP grants apply for SSI or for Social Security Disability Income. While they wait the two years it usually takes for the claims to be processed, they have no other means of support. The state gives them this meager allowance to hold them over. It's what we call a "safety net."
When DALP recipients finally are approved for SSI, they get $458 a month. And the state's cash grants end.
Here's the part that, in light of Mr. Glendening's affection for fiscal prudence, makes his decision to abolish DALP puzzling.
When an SSI application is approved, the federal government reimburses the state for the DALP payments made during the application process.
Of course, the state does not get all of its money back. Not all applicants have their requests for SSI approved. (The state says the approval rate is 61 percent; the Maryland Disability Law Center claims its clients are successful 99 percent of the time.) Other DALP clients -- those who agree to take loans from the state while temporarily disabled -- generally do not pay the state back. In fiscal 1994, only $72,000 in loan repayments were received by the state out of the $15 million that taxpayers provided.
So, granted, we do not recoup every cent.
But is recovery of this money the point? And, more to the point, are we going to be better off by ending these outlays? What will be the costs in additional panhandling, homelessness, visits to emergency rooms, jail time, hunger?
Here, in the pathetically cold language of state bureaucracy, is what the General Assembly was told last week: "Anecdotal evidence suggests disabilities may worsen, homelessness may rise, criminal activity may increase, and individuals may struggle to obtain food and other necessities. Moreover, the lack of assistance could impede client efforts to overcome their disabilities and become more productive members of society."
Ending DALP would end Maryland's last, meager effort at temporary assistance for men and women who fall through a shrinking safety net -- the poor, the unemployed or unemployable and the sick. "The rock-bottom poor and disabled," is how Maryland law professor Stanley S. Herr described them.
Parris Glendening made this cut -- it was among his first actions as governor -- because he believed he could get away with simply calling DALP "welfare" and moving on to other business.
But our new governor was not allowed to get away with that sweet pension deal for himself. Nor should he be allowed to get away with abolishing DALP. That would be heartless -- and, in the long run, pound foolish.