He was not the only one making similarly frustrated statements. "I want to say, your state legislator is the highest-ranking official in your district. DCFS alone faced $460 million in cuts and McEwen was already getting calls from staff and social-service providers who had no place to take children coming into the foster care system. Meanwhile, the blind and disabled, the sick and impoverished, the elderly, orphaned and their caretakers who rely on social services were knee-deep in budget cuts with nowhere to turn. The governor, pressing for an income tax increase, promised he wouldn't balance the budget on the backs of the poor - which is exactly where budgets are always balanced. Legislators passed a budget that piled on the state's poorest and neediest. State finances were, as the kids say, a hot mess and lawmakers were in no hurry to clean it up by July 1, the start of the fiscal year. Erwin McEwen, director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, was in town right before Father's Day, ostensibly to discuss issues of fatherhood in black communities.Ĭonsidering the doomsday scenario playing out in Springfield at the time, McEwen couldn't address black men and their responsibilities until he addressed state legislators and theirs.īy now, the desperate situation he described June 19 should sound familiar.
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