The Honorable Dick Durbin
Chair, Committee on the Judiciary
525 S. 8th Street
Springfield, IL 62703
Dear Senator Durbin:
The Main purpose of the S. 4989(116th): HELP Act of 2020 is to strengthen existing non-emergency government funded support agencies. The main component of the bill is the improving the 211 services in each state. This bill should be approved and put into effect immediately for a multitude of reasons.
This bill will take stress off the current emergency services. Roughly 20 percent of all 911 calls are non-emergency calls. My father was a fireman for twenty years and was a fire chief for four years, and he said that about 15 percent of the 911 calls he got were non-emergency. He also says that he knows that the police deal with more non-emergency situations than firefighters. This bill will make the information about the 211 services more available to the public. In doing so, people will be more likely to reach out to 211 services in non-emergency situations like helping the homeless. This will allow emergency services to have more focus on responding to actual emergencies. This will also lower the amount of incarceration and arrests that are made by 911 emergency referrals. This will mean spending less money on arrests on people such as the homeless who get arrested for having no where to go.
This bill will also look at each state individually to decide allocation of money and resources. This will be determined by looking predictors such as population, density of population, and poverty rate to ensure that each state is given the appropriate resources. Overall, the bill authorizes an appropriation of $350 million yearly in the first two years and would decrease after two years to $300 million or less yearly within five years of the bill being passed. The bill also states that 25 percent of the funding needed will not come from the federal government, but instead will be funded by selling products and with donations given. It also says that less the one percent of the funding would be spent on administrative costs. Meaning most of the funding form the federal government would go to improving current systems and making sure that they are available for everyone to utilize in addition to making information about the services more readily available.
I asked over thirty people if they knew what the 211 number is and what services they provide, and not a single person could tell me anything about service. It is our responsibility to teach people that there are resources readily available for non-emergency help such as the homeless, mental health, suicide prevention, domestic violence, and other human needs. It is also our responsibility to provide care for those individuals who need these resources other than arresting them or other extreme and unnecessary measures that cost taxpayers more money. Arresting them does not help them and just makes it more likely that they will get arrested again. Referring people in non-emergency need can get people the help they need to keep or make them into self-providing citizens.
In conclusion, the S. 4989(116th): HELP Act of 2020 should be passed. It will take pressure off of emergency services by informing people about the number’s existence. It will also make sure that people have the necessary helping resources available in all communities at any hour of the year. There are also no new agencies being produced from this bill it is only meant to expand and improve what is already been in place so that it can better serve the communities that need it the most. Overall, the money that the bill authorizes seems relatively small compared to other federal programs, and the cost is expected to decrease over time. Meaning if we invest the money now it will mean spending less in the future. We have tired the current method for years and the problems are not getting any better, so it is time to try something a little more old fashion by letting the community help people by giving people access to the communities resources.
https://www.factretriever.com/911-emergency-call-facts
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s4989/text/is
No comments:
Post a Comment