Unconscionable

I've spent the past week reading, analyzing and processing through funding requests from our community's social service providers.

Our city, like so many others, must begin to confront the growing disparity between dwindling public funding dollars and increased community need.

I am deeply frustrated and saddened by my city's shrinking social services budget. How do we care for families and individuals in crises if we lack the funding to provide emergency shelter, food, prescriptions, transportation, utility assistance, interim housing? What will happen to the abused child, the battered spouse, the runaway teen, the homeless veteran without crises intervention and case management?

I would not be surprised if the amount my fellow citizens spend on their favorite coffee drink and scone, just the one day's worth mind you, was enough to fund at least one vitally necessary social service funding request for an entire year.

This community has the resources required to feed, to shelter, and to help its citizenry in crises develop the skills necessary for self-sufficiency; but, we choose our own self-indulgent lifestyles over caring for one another.

...and I'm as guilty of this as the next person.

So now I have no choice but to make funding recommendations to my city council, knowing that social services will be cut and that the need in my community will continue to grow unassailed.

One word comes to my mind.

Unconscionable.

This situation is unconscionable.