CUTTING RENTERS' TAX CREDIT HURTS THE NEEDIEST.

Byline: Bob Bonnot Local View

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal to scale back the renters' tax credit to low-income elderly, blind and disabled people could have a negative ripple effect on their ability to provide the most basic of needs - starting with food.

A recent study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research indicates that nearly one in three low-income adults in Los Angeles County is either hungry or at-risk for hunger, or ``food insecure,'' to coin the study's verbiage. The largest numbers of these, around 130,000, live in the San Fernando Valley area, and this doesn't even count children and the homeless.

In all of L.A. County, more than 18 percent of the 775,000 food-insecure adults are low-income senior citizens. The dilemma for them is real, and it's daily - they must make decisions like ``do I buy medicine, pay rent or buy food?'' Do we really want to make it more difficult for food-insecure seniors to make these trade-offs?

I don't think so - not in the kind of Valley community we are working to create for the future. The state budget crisis requires imaginative thinking and strong action. But this proposal appears to prey on those who can least afford the sacrifice.

Take away the average renters' tax credit of up to $347, and it's safe to say that many seniors will be even harder pressed to put food on their tables. For these citizens, every dollar counts; the ever-rising cost of living in Southern California puts people with low, fixed incomes at risk for being able to meet their most basic necessities, like good daily nutrition.

At the same time, the budget proposal to eliminate the program that provides similar cash benefits to senior homeowners in the same demographic, instead offering loans to cover their property taxes, puts their only security - their home - in jeopardy. They would face a lien on their homes, with interest accumulating at 2 percent annually until the property is sold.

Social service agencies like the Valley Interfaith Council are working hard to fill the gap for these food-insecure people. This year VIC will distribute food for more than 4 million meals through its 19 food pantries in the Valley, and will provide over 300,000 meals through 14 senior center nutrition sites. VIC operates the only Meals on Wheels program in the entire Valley.

There exists a danger that if the governor's proposals are adopted, the seniors who currently are willing to pay the $6 a day for one cold and one warm meal may no longer be able to afford the Meals on Wheels program.

Likewise, many seniors come daily to one of VIC's three Multi-Purpose Senior Centers, where, for $2 a day, they receive a meal and good social interaction. The program is subsidized by the Department of Aging, and there is funding for many more seniors to participate than actually take advantage of the service. We need to get the word out, but at the same time, we can't make it more difficult for them to come by taking away such assistance as the renters' tax credit.

Yes, government and charitable programs are helping to stabilize the hunger rates, the governor's proposal notwithstanding. But more must be done to reverse food insecurity and make the Valley a hunger-free zone. Every able citizen of the Valley has a role to play.

Of course, there is always a need for cash donations to spread the net of food assistance even further. VIC has made preventing hunger its No. 1 priority in 2005, and has launched a broad communications program to educate our citizens about food insecurity and to build public and business participation in a special ``Coalition to Prevent Hunger.''

But there is also an urgent need for volunteers to meet the demand for the Meals on Wheels and other programs. VIC currently has a waiting list of more than 200, mostly home-bound seniors, who would like meals delivered, but there aren't enough driver volunteers.

Residents of the San Fernando Valley must join together and work with the governor to make sure that his ideas to solve our state's budget woes don't leave more of our seniors hungry. But we also must roll up our sleeves to address the problem of hunger in the Valley head-on, like our own lives depended on it.