Dalp

A top aide to Parris N. Glendening acknowledged yesterday that the governor's plan to eliminate a state disability program could force people onto the streets and said the administration is trying to find ways to prevent that from happening.Carolyn D. Davis, a deputy chief of staff, said the administration intends to work with state and Baltimore housing officials to determine whether existing rent subsidy programs can help keep recipients from losing their apartments when their monthly benefits end July 1.But Ms. Davis told members of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee that the governor has no specific plan in mind and does not intend to appropriate more money for the purpose.

An incorrect number slipped into Monday's column on Governor Glendening's shortsighted decision to abolish Maryland's Disability Assistance and Loan Program. The state, in a report issued to members of the General Assembly last week, said about 61 percent of disabled adults who receive the $157 monthly DALP grants eventually are found eligible for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Other DALP recipients, who seek SSI with the help of the Maryland Disability Law Center, are successful about 90 percent of the time -- not 99 percent of the time, as stated here Monday.

Bryan Sams, a self-described "concerned citizen" from Westminster, grabbed a stack of leaflets last week and headed to a community meeting where the use of drug-sniffing dogs in county high schools was to be discussed. The meeting, at North Carroll High in Hampstead, was an appropriate place, Sams thought, for handing out documents expressing his views on the importance of civil liberties.But school officials were unnerved. Two of them threw the offending document on the briefcase of school board attorney Edmund J. O'Meally.

An incorrect number slipped into Monday's column on Governor Glendening's shortsighted decision to abolish Maryland's Disability Assistance and Loan Program. The state, in a report issued to members of the General Assembly last week, said about 61 percent of disabled adults who receive the $157 monthly DALP grants eventually are found eligible for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Other DALP recipients, who seek SSI with the help of the Maryland Disability Law Center, are successful about 90 percent of the time -- not 99 percent of the time, as stated here Monday.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening's plan to abolish a program that gives disabled adults $157 a month plus health care coverage will push many of the 21,000 recipients onto the streets, where some surely will die, a legislative panel was told yesterday.Charities, advocates for the homeless, medical care providers, a drug addiction counselor, and several program recipients who said the modest benefits saved their lives all begged a House Appropriations subcommittee yesterday to restore the program.