OAKLAND - East Bay community groups packed Tuesday's Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting, proposing an alternative budget plan aimed at restoring recent cuts that have left 3,000 residents without General Assistance aid.

At the hearing, General Assistance recipients, concerned citizens and members of Bay Area groups - including Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency and the East Bay Community Law Center - packed into the county Board of Supervisors' chambers to ask supervisors to rescind GA cuts when they adopt their budget for the next fiscal year this Friday.

The county is facing a $152 million budget gap for the 2010-11 fiscal year after suffering a 4 percent drop in county revenues.

General Assistance is funded by the county and provides monthly cash loans of up to $336 to individuals who are without dependents and have no other means of support.

Since April, nearly 3,000 people in the county have had their general assistance terminated after the county implemented a three-month time limit for assistance to people who are deemed "employable."

Before the April move, the number of GA recipients in the county was 6,857 - 351 of which have a Berkeley address - according to Sylvia Soublet, public information officer at the county social services agency.

"Time-limiting general assistance will jeopardize public safety and increase disenfranchisement of these vulnerable community members by eliminating essential supportive services," said John Engstrom, a staff attorney for the East Bay Community Law Center, at the meeting.

At the meeting, Engstrom presented a proposal from the law center to the board that he said could be an alternative to GA cuts and could save the county money while increasing services to the indigent population.

"I'd like to get some feedback on (the proposal) before we conclude with the budget deliberations," said Supervisor Nate Miley. "Hearing testimony today ... at least resurrects in my mind that we should be looking at what we can do."

Yolanda Baldovinos, director of the social services agency, and Dan Kaplan, finance director for the agency, will deliver a report to the board on the proposal and the financial impacts of the house-sharing deduction, medical deduction and the time-limit at another hearing Wednesday. Final voting for the budget is slated for Friday.

"There is nothing wrong with anything that anybody has said (today)," Supervisor Gail Steele said. "What we've done, it isn't right from a moral sense. The issue is $20 million dollars ... I think the county has to work on this with all due diligence."

The cuts increase unemployment and hunger and reduce access to health care, according to members of the law center who spoke at the meeting. The cuts also increase city crime and homelessness rates, the group said.

"Nine months out of the year in homelessness and destitution does not increase a person's ability to find a job - rather, it makes that person unemployable," said Rachel Bennett, a Boalt Hall School of Law student who works at the law center.

Speakers at the meeting asked the supervisors to eliminate medical and shared housing deductions from general assistance. As of last September, recipients may have $40 deducted from their assistance for not having health insurance and 10 to 25 percent of their assistance deducted for sharing housing.

"This rule does not make sense," said Gina Gemello, a law student working at the law center. "It tells GA recipients not to be resourceful, not to pool their resources, not to reduce overhead housing costs."

Tags: HOMELESSNESS, ALAMEDA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, GENERAL ASSISTANCE