When Budget Cutbacks Make the Disabled Their Victims : Social services: The Independent Living Center comes to the rescue of those suffering from reductions in government assistance.

The fact that Clyde Rossberg was about to be thrown out of his apartment was predictable news to his caseworker at the Independent Living Center.

Rossberg, 51, who has been fighting Lou Gehrig’s disease for 33 years, said he went to the Van Nuys agency in August for a different reason--to get help applying to the Department of Rehabilitation for a computer that would augment his voice, which deteriorated after he was put on a ventilator in 1992.

By then he was already falling behind in his rent.

Rossberg, who is nearly paralyzed by the progressive muscle disease and hasn’t worked since 1988, is one of thousands of San Fernando Valley residents whose hold on a life of minimum stability is slipping because of reductions in government programs and the financial depletion of the nonprofit agencies that administer them.

In July, Rossberg received a cut in his monthly allowance from the state in-home supportive services program that helps the disabled stay out of hospitals by paying for home attendants.

Rossberg said $50 was cut from his $605 monthly benefit, and he will lose another $25 Jan. 1.

“On my kind of budget, that’s a lot of money,” he said.

With Social Security as his only other source of income, Rossberg was paying $685 in rent and $1,500 for a 24-hour-a-day caretaker who cooks his meals, gets him in and out of bed, sterilizes his ventilator and runs his errands.

“I would pay one month and the next two months I couldn’t,” he said. “I was robbing Peter to pay Paul. I had been there a long time, so they were very lenient with me.”

His balancing act finally crashed when he was ordered to vacate by Nov. 1.

Rossberg’s caseworker, Cynthia Vicknair, considered herself lucky to get any notice. It gave her time to piece together a new life for Rossberg before the old one crumbled.

Usually, Vicknair said, they come to her after they’ve been thrown out and she has to find them an emergency shelter.

“They move in their car and they come to us,” she said. “Whatever belongs to them is in their car.”

For the clientele of the Independent Living Center, the combination of recession and state budget cuts can be devastating.

Last year, the agency helped 4,700 disabled adults in Los Angeles and Kern counties find housing, hire attendants, work out budgets and search out government benefits, said Executive Director Norma Vescovo.

Some were referred by hospitals after being treated for ailments from spinal cord injury to stroke. Others were young people seeking to move out on their own.

But one out of five were return clients, coming back after losing their homes, Vescovo said. Over the past two years, basic Social Security payments to the disabled have dropped from $630 to $603, and in-home services was cut 12% this year, Vescovo said.

“They can’t afford to stay in the apartments where they live,” Vescovo said.

Often, Independent Living Center is able to relocate them in less expensive apartments or get them qualified for federal housing subsidies, but some are lost to the street life, she said.

“That person getting $660 a month is the rich person on the street,” Vescovo said. “They have no bills. They have no one coming to them. They don’t want to go back to that pressure.”

Independent Living Center of Southern California is one of many Valley charitable nonprofit corporations that exist to channel government funds and services to groups that have specific needs: the elderly, the disabled, the emotionally disturbed, the abused.

Today, such organizations are caught in a squeeze. Their own resources, which usually rely heavily on government grants and reimbursement, are diminishing at the same time as economic pressures are increasing the number of people coming to them for services. Often the consequence is that the needy are merely sent away.

At the San Fernando Valley Child Guidance Clinic, it is victims of child abuse or potential victims who are losing out.

Rising unemployment places more children at risk of abuse by their parents, said Linda Damon, director of child abuse services at the Panorama City agency.

“One mother called saying she felt like she was very frightened that she might hit her child too hard,” Damon said. “She was so angry and she felt like she was losing control. All we were able to do was to talk to her over the telephone, tell her how to control her anger, and how she might be able to deal with her young child who was just 3. We weren’t able to have her come in to see us.”

About 70% of the 700 abused children and their families counseled annually at the Child Guidance Clinic have their fees paid partly or in full under the state’s restitution fund for victims of crime.

That fund is supplied by penalty assessments added to the fines charged convicted felons. Since the Legislature increased the fines in 1991 and diverted $3 of every $10 into the state treasury, the fund has declined from $55.6 million that year to $45.3 million this year, said Jody Patel, fiscal manager for the Board of Control, which administers the Victims of Crime Program.

The board’s response to the problem has been to put all claims in line and pay them as funds come in, Patel said. Currently, payments are nearly four months behind, and the lag is increasing, she said.

Meantime, demand on it is increasing as more child abuse is reported and more of the victims lack their own resources.

“How do we continue to provide treatment when we are not able to continue to pay the staff or cover the overhead?” Damon asked.

The clinic continues to take in those who are eligible for reimbursement, but has begun to turn away some of those who have not come through the criminal justice system.

“We probably have to turn away about 20 or 30 a month,” Damon said. “We will give them names of other referral sources when we can. But, because of the recession, many parents can’t afford any private treatment.”

The outlook is grim too for the frail elderly. Because of cutbacks of state and federal funds from the Older Americans Act, the Los Angeles Department of Aging in July reduced its grants to Van Nuys-based Organization for the Needs of the Elderly by $91,000.

Besides reducing the number of meals it delivered to homebound elderly and eliminating a transportation service for 80 clients, the organization had to tighten its criteria for in-home services such as house-cleaning and personal hygiene, said Diane McCarthy, director of case management. Ten of the 19 people who received two hours of housecleaning monthly and five of the nine who received personal hygiene were dropped, McCarthy said.

One who lost both services was an 85-year-old woman who lives alone in Canoga Park. Bound to a wheelchair by arthritis of the spine, she requires assistance with shopping and all her household chores.

“There were people more in need of it than she was,” McCarthy said. The difference is that she has a nephew and friends from church who look after her and neighbors who check to be sure she is well.

“At this point, she is able to be there because she has some support,” McCarthy said. “Had she not had the neighbors and family support, which was very limited, the consequences would be that she would be in a nursing home.”

A less appealing future--checking into a hospital for the rest of his life--awaited Rossberg if he couldn’t pay his rent.

As his day of reckoning approached, he put it out of his mind.

“I didn’t think about it,” he said. “I just assumed I would be in another apartment. I couldn’t live in the street and I refuse to live in a hospital bed someplace, because living in a hospital is not a life as far as I am concerned.”

Fortunately, his caseworker came up with a timely strategy. The Independent Living Center contracts each year with the Los Angeles City Housing Authority to screen applicants for 80 federally subsidized housing allotments. Coming in quarterly installments of 20, they are snapped up within days of arrival, Vicknair said. A allotment had just come in when Rossberg’s problem came to her attention.

Because of his circumstances, Rossberg qualified for the Section 8 subsidy. He moved to a new apartment in Van Nuys Oct. 23 and now pays $205 monthly, allowing him to reconstruct his budget.

And now he gets the most out of life.

“I sit and watch TV,” he said. “I spend a lot of time on the phone.”

A board member of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Assn., he comforts and encourages others who have his illness, and an ordained pastor, he ministers to those who are haunted by past afflictions.

“My way of feeling useful and productive is to be involved in the ministry praying for people,” he said.