Get the Messge Out: Raise the $60 Personal Needs Allowance! What You Can Do
Get the Messge Out: Raise the $60 Personal Needs Allowance! What You Can Do
Dear friends - Here's another way to get our message out about the personal needs allowance.Print this booklet that tells the real stories of several personal care home residents and their struggles to survive on $60 per month. You can print a copy of this booklet (color is fantastic if you have a color printer!), personalize it with your own message and send it on to the Governor and your legislators.
You could even have everyone in your drop-in center, support group, clubhouse, personal care home or other group to write their personal messages. Some people may want to tell what they spend their monthly allowance on. Feel free to add more blank pages that you fill in.
You will want to include a cover letter that tells who is sending the booklet to them so they can contact you. Here is what we want the governor and our legislators to know:
It's time to give a holiday gift to Pennsylvania's low income personal care home residents: SPLIT THE SSI RAISE!
Nearly 10,000 seniors and people with disabilities in PA's personal care homes are struggling to live on a $60 monthly allowance that must pay for medication co-pays, transportation, clothing, phone calls and all personal items. They have not received a raise in their monthly needs allowance since 1993!
In January 2009, all citizens on SSI will receive a generous 5.8% cost of living raise, $37 per month - the largest raise in 25 years. PA's PCH residents will not receive ONE CENT of the raise unless DPW decides lets some of it go to them. We advocate that the raise be split evenly between the residents and the owners, as it was for Dom Care.
Please ask DPW to "Split the SSI raise" so that some of our most vulnerable residents can better meet their own needs!
Send to:
1. Governor Edward Rendell
225 Capital Building
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Or [email protected].
2. Your PA state legislators - You can find your legislator at www.congress.org. Type your zip code into the box beside "find your officials". Send your message to your State Legislators.
Questions? Contact me at PMHCA: 412-621-4706 or [email protected].
Thank you for in advance for making the effort to make a difference for 10,000 Pennsylvanians!
Rachel
Rachel Freund
Policy Advocate Coordinator
Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers Association
374 Lawn Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Pittsburgh office: 412.621.4706 extension 22 Harrisburg office: 1.800.88PMHCA (1.800.887.6422) www.pmhca.org