Hundreds Block Broad St., Protesting End of Pa. General Assistance Payments
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A couple of hundred protesters gathered today outside the governor's Philadelphia offices to protest the end of general assistance payments to the poor.
Those cash payments of $200 a month for single adults, couples without children, and some disabled people, end tomorrow.
Governor Tom Corbett proposed eliminating the general assistance program in February. The legislature went along with it in July, and tomorrow those payments run out for 61,00 Pennsylvanians, about 35,000 of whom live in Philadelphia.
Today, a couple of hundred protesters gathered outside the governor's office at the Bellevue, Broad and Walnut Streets, to protest the end of the general assistance program.
The governor's office says that the people who are being cut off should apply for other programs such as food stamps or the federal TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) program.
But these protesters were saying that is not enough, and the governor and the state should be doing more.
The protest blocked at least one southbound lane of Broad Street at Walnut Street, but there was some traffic trickling by on one southbound lane of Broad Street.
