United Way of the North Shore recently submitted this Letter to the Editor to Pioneer Press. Please read to find information on the State budget cuts that will devastate our health and human service agencies. For more information on United Way of Metropolitan Chicago’s advocacy efforts on this issue, please go here.
Letter to the Editor
On May 31, the Illinois legislator passed a budget that reduces funding by 50% for health and human services. This means that many of the programs that keep our less fortunate North Shore residents self-sufficient are now at risk of being reduced or eliminated. Agencies in our communities, from Evanston to Glencoe to Lake Bluff, are extremely vulnerable to these cuts.
If this State funding budget is not increased dramatically, it will have devastating consequences for the 63 agencies that the United Way of the North Shore funds and that provide hands-on health and human services to residents of the North Shore. Those of us who live on the North Shore are not immune to the current economic crisis. Food pantries throughout our region have seen demand reach unprecedented levels. Pockets of homelessness, especially in Evanston, are growing rapidly. And rising unemployment in each of our communities, combined with a depressed real estate market, is negatively impacting every member of the families affected.
We urge lawmakers to maintain full funding for health and human services. Please contact your legislators and ask them to support full funding for these vital services to residents in the North Shore by calling your State Representative Karen May (847.433.9100) or Julie Hamos (847.424.9898) and your State Senator Susan Garrett (847.433.2002) or Jeffrey Schoenberg (847.492.1200).
United Way of the North Shore
