As usual here in Illinois the social service agencies are the first on the chopping block because we have no lobby in Springfield, and don't provide enough monetary compensation for our representatives to give a damn about us.

When agencies asked how to deal with the thousands of people who will be displaced by these cuts, the State's Secretary of the Department of Human Services had no response. The new fiscal year as well as the budget cuts started today.

I want to have my state legislature spend an afternoon in any number of agencies today who are closing their doors and explain to an adult or child suffering from mental illness–self-mutilation, pyromania, dimentia, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorders, sudden onset explosive disorder, anger management etc. that the one place which has been helping them is now closing. That where they have friends is closing. That where they have built a life for themselves is closing.

But our clients are the marginalized, the poor, the ghosts who walk our city streets seen but not heard, acknowledged but not understood, and in most cases roundly ignored and thankfully forgotten by our politicians as soon as they are finished with their photo op at our agencies. They have no lobby and no money and are therefore expendable.

These people will be tossed out onto the streets with no treatment, no help and no options. People will die, and no one seems to care.