I thank all of you for joining us here this morning to announce the official launch of a new web tool and resource for Baltimore County’s citizens entitled “A Helping Hand in Hard Times.” The great American author, Herman Melville once said, “We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.” In Baltimore County government, we understand that if we are to build successful, lasting communities, we are only as strong as our weakest link. We have no greater responsibility than helping those who need that help the most. This website is a tangible demonstration of that commitment. There are mountains of data and statistics that quantify the impact of this economic recession on the people of our communities, but last year the men and women in Baltimore County government did not need to wait for those facts and figures to be compiled, because they saw the effects of the economic crisis up close everyday. They saw the mothers and fathers who worked day and night just to get by and couldn’t afford to have anyone to watch their children. They saw unemployed homeowners unable to find work facing foreclosures on their family homes. They saw senior citizens cutting their pills in half to make their prescriptions last just a little longer. And as more and more people found themselves in crisis, the need for the services of our County agencies expanded to unprecedented levels. But Baltimore County is fortunate to have some of the most skilled, qualified, and caring public servants in the nation. The support they have been able to provide to the people of our County has done nothing less than save lives. But unfortunately, this recession has placed many of the individuals seeking assistance in situations where their needs go beyond the specific area of expertise and resources of any single agency. With so many of our residents in crisis in so many different ways, it was clear that we could not conduct business as usual. One of local government’s most fundamental responsibilities is to provide a safety net for those in need by ensuring that they have access to any and all available resources and programs. That is why, in November of last year, Barry Williams, our Director of Workforce Development convened a meeting of the heads of Baltimore County’s numerous human services agencies, including the Office of Workforce Development, the Department of Social Services, and the Department of Health. The outcome of the meeting was the formation of Baltimore County’s Human Services Workgroup which tasked itself to develop a way for the various County agencies to address the many and varied needs of the people of Baltimore County that were the most frequent, critical and urgent. The committee went to their staff on the front line in the various County agencies to find the most frequent problems encountered. After carefully analyzing the feedback from staff, the Workgroup created a web-based tool called “A Helping Hand in Hard Times,” which identifies the various resources and how to access these resources available to address the most frequently occurring problems. Accessible through the Baltimore County website, it is an invaluable resource that assists people in understanding which of our agencies or programs are appropriate to meet their particular and various problems. This website addresses specific crises in the 16 categories that our work group found to be the most frequent and urgent: aging, adult care, animal rescue, business owners, child care, crime and safety, employment, finance, food, general health, mental health, housing, legal, replacing lost identification (a particular problem for former inmates looking for work), transportation, and utilities. Thanks to this website, citizens will be able to identify quickly which of our many outstanding agencies and programs are best able to address their specific needs. Even if one does not own a computer or have access to the Internet at home, this web tool can be accessed at any of Baltimore County’s 17 public library branches. While it is important that County citizens have direct access to the agencies of Baltimore County government that can meet their need, it is equally important that there be no agency wrong door or phone number to get government assistance. That is why this website will also help the helpers, those who work in our many County agencies. If anyone calls any of our human service agencies with a problem that that agency cannot address, employees of that agency will now be able to use this website to put the caller in touch with the agency or program that will be able to help them, and this may be a number of different agencies to meet a number of different problems. I am deeply grateful to Barry Williams for his leadership and to all of the members of the Human Services Workgroup for responding so quickly and so effectively. They have combined the efforts and energy of many different agencies to create an important and urgently needed tool. I also thank Lisa Scott, Jim DeArmey, and our OIT Department team who participated in the easy to use design of this website. Everyone involved in this project has demonstrated why I continue to say with confidence that Baltimore County is home to the finest public servants anywhere. Thanks to this website, their skills and assistance will be even more accessible than ever before to the people who need them most.
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