Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,158
- Reaction score
- 7
Effort to save economy wrecks legal aid for poor
Advocacy Inc., facing up to $800,000 in lost income in 2010, fears the financial crisis will leave people like Ricky Vargas unprotected. Vargas, who is deaf and has an intellectual disability, was languishing in a Brownwood institution where none of the residents or staff knew sign language.
Advocacy helped Vargas, 24, negotiate the complex social services network to move into an Austin house with other deaf individuals, learn woodworking as a paid intern and prepare to take community college courses.
"This is much better because there are deaf people around me, and I can communicate and understand what's going on," he said through a sign language interpreter. "I want to work. That's one of my goals."
Advocacy Inc. helped 4,000 people last year. Unless more money is found, it will serve 500 to 600 fewer clients in 2010, executive director Mary Faithfull said.
Advocacy is already leaving five of its 105 jobs unfilled, cutting five percent from its budget, renegotiating leases and arranging with private lawyers to handle more cases, Faithfull said.
"If that doesn't do it, we will be laying off," she said. "We're looking at some real hard times here."
Advocacy Inc., facing up to $800,000 in lost income in 2010, fears the financial crisis will leave people like Ricky Vargas unprotected. Vargas, who is deaf and has an intellectual disability, was languishing in a Brownwood institution where none of the residents or staff knew sign language.
Advocacy helped Vargas, 24, negotiate the complex social services network to move into an Austin house with other deaf individuals, learn woodworking as a paid intern and prepare to take community college courses.
"This is much better because there are deaf people around me, and I can communicate and understand what's going on," he said through a sign language interpreter. "I want to work. That's one of my goals."
Advocacy Inc. helped 4,000 people last year. Unless more money is found, it will serve 500 to 600 fewer clients in 2010, executive director Mary Faithfull said.
Advocacy is already leaving five of its 105 jobs unfilled, cutting five percent from its budget, renegotiating leases and arranging with private lawyers to handle more cases, Faithfull said.
"If that doesn't do it, we will be laying off," she said. "We're looking at some real hard times here."