Another article in the Times. A look at the numbers behind our services is incredibly powerful. One real example (made anonymous for the sake of confidentiality) shows that our services helped one person earn enough that it saved taxpayers $1,812 in Social Security benefits last year while increasing that person’s income by $5,460, all spent here in the local Streator Economy. Another shows how our services saved taxpayers’ money be decreasing Medicaid medical costs by $11,526 last year. These are just two out of the 32 people whose funding was cut by the State of Illinois. And these were not one-time savings, but ongoing over years. Services to people with developmental disabilities make cold-hearted economic sense, and that doesn’t even begin to touch the enhancements in quality of life and ability to contribute to one’s community.
