About 100 recovering drug addicts marched on City Hall yesterday to protest public funding cuts that will cripple a well-known recovery program.
Chanting the name of the organization, I Can't We Can, they drew the attention of City Councilman Bernard "Jack" Young, who said he is powerless to help but "stands in solidarity."
Other city employees stopped to watch the group pray and tell stories about addiction and survival.
Al Moy?, who credits the program with his recovery from addiction, said lives and public safety are at risk if I Can't We Can closes its doors.
"All these people here," he said, gesturing to the group, "they used to be drug addicts in the streets."
I Can't We Can is a network of halfway houses and clinical services founded 13 years ago by former heroin addict Israel Cason. As of July 1, it will lose about $350,000 in city and state aid distributed by Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems. Cason has vowed to continue helping addicts, but he said he might have to do so in a more limited way.
BSAS said funding is being cut to I Can't We Can because the organization's state license has lapsed, its financial books are in disarray and conditions at some of its properties are unsafe.
"As sad as the situation is, they have inhumane living conditions for addicts in their care," said BSAS president Greg Warren. "They have no accounting for how the taxpayers' money is being spent."
Some properties have holes in ceilings and walls and are fire hazards, he said, and the program has "an egregious financial infrastructure."
BSAS will not reconsider restoring funding for the coming fiscal year, Warren said.
"We encourage them to apply in future years as they fix the grave concerns we have," Warren said.
I Can't We Can employees and current and former clients are calling on city leaders to intervene.
When the funding cuts were disclosed earlier this month, the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wrote to Mayor Sheila Dixon and City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake to ask for a city meeting "to address this life-threatening plight of this tremendous operation."
Branch President Marvin "Doc" Cheatham said yesterday that he had not heard back from either elected official.
"I don't know whether I'm more angry or sad," he said.
