Over 200 of the District’s residents crowded the halls of the Wilson Building for the Save Our Safety Net(SOS) Reality Tour on May 18th from 11am to 1pm. The goal of the tour was to show the council that the residents do care about services that could be possibly be cut under the FY 2012 budget. Because they could not bring the councilmembers to the people, they brought the people to the front door of the council members’ offices. The final budget will be voted on May 24th. rnrnThe tour participants formed a line which went out of the main doors of the Wilson Building and into the rain. The residents went en masse Mary Che’s office, Muriel Bowser’s office, Yvette Alexander and Kwame Brown’s. All of the council members seemed to be very surprised to see the large crowd of residents who came to talk to them about their services. Janelle Treibitz, Campaign Organizer for (SOS) said that “the turnout alone was really a powerful statement to the Council”. rnrnThe majority of the cuts in the Mayor’s initial budget are to human services, in particular homeless services and TANF. Organizations such as SOME, Miriams Kitchen, Bread for the City, ONE DC and Empower DC participated in the tour. The members of these organizations and that utilize the services of these groups stand to be hit the hardest by the FY 2012 budget. rnrnWatch footage online!
