Helping Poor Will Challenge Samaritans

By JIM KEVLIN
The War on Poverty dates back to LBJ’s State of the Union speech in 1964, but Opportunities for Otsego is still fighting the fight.
In the past decade, its Wheels To Work program has sold used cars, $750 each, to 200 Otsego County families who, living off the OPT lines, wouldn’t have been able to get to jobs otherwise.
Its Homelessness Intervention Grants provide emergency rent payments to people, many of whom have lost their jobs, who would lose the roofs over their heads without it.
CSBGs – Community Services Block Grants – helped OFO create the homeless shelter on Depew Street, which has been 80 percent occupied for the past year, mostly families with children, 300 individuals in all.
CSBGs also created a shelter for victims of family violence – mothers and children – in a locale unspecified, for obvious reasons, and OFO provides them with legal help and counseling as well.
“There is no other option for the folks who depend on us,” Gary Herzig, OFO’s chief operating officer, said in an interview the other day.  “If we can’t help a homeless family, there is no place else they can go for help.”
Contrary to the stereotype, 70 percent of OFO’s client are working people, but working in fast-food, quick-stops, the tourism trade; many of them simply can’t make ends meet, Herzig said.
The poverty level for a family of four is $24,000, he said:  Think about how far that goes.
Right now, in particular, none of this is academic, since Congress and the General Assembly in Albany are debating how much to cut all these programs, plus HEAP (heating assistance), Head Start (for pre-schoolers) and much more.
How much?  “That’s completely up in the air,” Herzig said.
With the looming threats, he and the CFO, Amy Vogel, have been thinking of ways to raise funds to make up as much as possible for likely shortfalls.
As it happens, OFO is marking its 45th year of service – the sapphire anniversary – so one idea was a celebration, which grew into a gala planned Saturday, May 7, at SUNY Oneonta’s Hunt Union ballroom.
The evening will also honor Ron Ranc and Roxana Hurlburt of ISD, the local technology company that has assisted OFO in a variety of endeavors.
Other plans are also in the offing, Herzig said.
OFO’s fate is not just important to our most vulnerable neighbors, as it is one of the major employers in the county, with more than 200 people working in sites that range from Schenevus to Richfield Springs to Oneonta’s several sites.
OFO’s budget is $9 million, and 90 percent of that is spent locally, Vogel said.  The multiplier effect would suggest that creates more than $20 million in spending power over the years.
The county’s political delegation has been accessible to OFO, Herzig said, but it’s a tough time.
OFO President Dan Maskin met just last week with U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna, R-Barneveld, elected in November.
“He was sympathetic of what we do,” Herzig related, “but...”

HOMETOWN ONEONTA
OFO Chief Operating Officer Gary Herzig and CFO Amy Vogel are combatting budget cuts.