Dalp

Beginning today, about 50 disabled adults in Carroll County who were receiving monthly cash from a state program that ended Friday can apply for financial help from local social service providers.The county's Department of Social Services and the nonprofit Human Services Programs Inc. are working together to assist county residents who won't receive $157 monthly payments through the Disability Assistance Loan Program.During this year's General Assembly session, Gov. Parris N. Glendening eliminated the $35 million DALP program, which provided cash payments to 21,000 disabled Marylanders.

At busy Baltimore street corners -- adjacent to Oriole Park, for example, or on 29th Street at St. Paul -- watch for new indicators of decline in the political power of American cities.The newest panhandling placards may say, "DALP Veteran, Please Help."DALP stands for Disability Assistance and Loan Program, a $34 million public assistance fund that offered cash assistance to disabled Marylanders.It officially went out of business yesterday. It wouldn't have happened in the heyday of urban political power.

When Steve Newcome, Dot Ross and about 22,000 other impoverished, disabled people visit banks across Maryland this month, they won't find the $157 in state aid they have been accustomed to getting there -- money for rent, transportation and other necessities.Effective today, the state's Disability Assistance and Loan Program (DALP), a $35-million-a-year last resort for disabled people who haven't secured federal help, is scrapped, and an $11.2 million program replaces it. A companion $13 million medical program has been cut to about $7 million.

After nearly eight years in office Baltimoreans are used to the reserved approach Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke takes when he's in a fight. Not one to rant and rave, Mr. Schmoke prefers quiet diplomacy. Occasionally he's feisty, as in the nasty and unnecessary public feud to gain control of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association board. But too often he's meek when the city needs him to shout. Such was the case with DALP.The Disability Assistance and Loan Program has fallen victim to Gov. Parris N. Glendening's theories on welfare.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke worked so quietly to save the Disability Assistance and Loan Program that most people didn't even know he was involved in the battle. Maybe if he had taken this fight to the people, DALP would have been saved. As it is, his style of quiet diplomacy has not convinced Gov. Parris N. Glendening to keep the welfare program. And that's going to hurt Baltimore.DALP gives about 20,000 adults, most of them Baltimore residents, a monthly stipend of $157. That costs Maryland about $34 million a year.

Whaddaya know? The mayor of Baltimore thinks the governor's decision to cut state funding for the disabled poor was a bad idea. The mayor now calls it "a man-made disaster." Nice he noticed. All the damage was done months ago, in Annapolis. But where were the mayor and his lobbyists? Didn't they know that gutting the Disability Assistance and Loan Program (DALP) would hit Baltimore hardest? Baltimore is where three-quarters of Maryland's rock-bottom poor reside (assuming they "reside" in something other than a cardboard box)

Before Friday, when he offered more bucks for housing and medical vouchers to soften the blow of his decision to kill the state's cash grants to poor and disabled Marylanders, the governor had gone on the offensive. He had been throwing darts at the Disability Assistance and Loan Program, claiming that more than half of DALP's clients are drug addicts or alcoholics, and that the state collects little of the money it loans through the program.I think he's stretched some numbers to bolster a bad decision.

Attempting to soften the blow of his decision to kill a monthly subsidy program for the disabled poor, Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday asked the General Assembly to appropriate nearly $20 million to help former recipients find shelter, obtain medical care or receive federal assistance.The governor introduced a $64.5 million supplement to his original $14.5 billion budget, which lawmakers had pared to $14.3 billion earlier in the session, in part by cutting several spending initiatives that were priorities for Mr. Glendening.

Feeling ignored and increasingly desperate, a group of disabled men and women who receive a subsistence allowance from the state said yesterday that if the payments are discontinued, many recipients will have no alternative but to turn to crime."

It has been a month since Gov. Parris Glendening proposed eliminating the $35 million Disability Assistance and Loan Program (DALP) and its $13 million companion health care program. Except for efforts to restore partial medical coverage for DALP recipients, the contingency plan promised by the governor to ease the pain of these cuts seems to have been forgotten. Carolyn Davis, a deputy chief of staff, told a Senate panel this week the governor at this stage has no specific plan in mind and will spend no money to implement any plan.