Disabled Plead for a Budget to Live By : Health services: State financial impasse threatens housing, medicine and services for handicapped, Santa Ana demonstrators say.

About 500 protesters, both the disabled and those who help them with the tasks of daily living, marched outside the state office building Thursday to protest California’s lack of a budget.

Many protesters were in wheelchairs and many carried signs. One sign read, “Don’t Put Our Disabled Citizens in the Streets.”

The budget impasse threatens their housing, medicine and services, the protesters said. If the budget is not signed by 4:30 p.m. today, the Orange County-based agency that disburses funds for placement and care for about 7,000 developmentally disabled adults and children will close, officials of the agency said.

Closure of the Developmentally Disabled Center of Orange County will mean that those people will have no way to pay their bills. Many workers and parents at the rally said they now worry that some of the people may be evicted and eventually wind up in the streets.

A Newport Beach mother of a 30-year-old man with Down’s syndrome at the rally wept as she talked about her concern.

“My son Richard still has a place because he lives with us,” said Shirley Piha. “But when I look at all these others here in the crowd, I find it hard to talk, and I start crying because many of them don’t have anyone to take them in. I just don’t understand it,” she said. “How can Gov. Pete Wilson allow this? How can (Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown?”

Officials who deal with care for the handicapped said they don’t expect any immediate evictions of residents from private care homes, which are trying to stay open even though no money is coming in.

“But obviously one of our concerns is what is going to happen to these clients,” said Elaine Bamberg of Irvine, chief executive officer of the Developmentally Disabled Center of Orange County. She said the center tried as long as it could to funnel money to the 600 private institutions in Orange County that provide housing or services for the developmentally disabled. Bamberg noted that the center even got a $6-million bank loan after July 1, when no new state budget was passed. But she said that loan has now been exhausted and that no new loan is available.

“I think all of us are tired of the political games that are being played in Sacramento at the expense of a very vulnerable people,” she said. “We simply want a budget signed.”

Elizabeth Halahan of Orange, chairwoman of of the center’s residential services advisory committee, said: “We’ve got residential-service providers who are absolutely panicked that there is not going to be a place to live for these people. Mortgages have to be paid. Food has to be purchased, and utilities have to be paid, regardless of whether the money is there.”

The 7,000 people affected include those who suffer mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism and disabling epilepsy.

The protesters gathered at the entrance of the state office building about 11:30 a.m. and dispersed about 1 p.m., after marching and chanting, “Sign the budget now!”.

California State Police Officer Joe McCaffrey, who helps guard the building, estimated that 500 to 600 people took part in the demonstration. He noted that the event was peaceful and without incident.