Pennsylvania may be teetering on the verge of chaos, with domestic violence shelters shutting their doors to life-and-death crises and preschools on life support, due to the ongoing political strife in Harrisburg.

“Education officials wonder when the first school district will decide to shut down to send a signal to Harrisburg. People who deal with the vulnerable wonder if someone has to die first,” The Morning Call reported this week.

“… Last Monday, a woman in a shelter for domestic violence survivors tried to kill herself after she missed an appointment with a therapist,” the article said. “The shelter had halted its transportation services to save gas money.”

Dried-up state aid has caused two other shelters to turn away new arrivals, and at least one preschool announced it was halting classes.

While state employees continue to get paid, “county governments and local school boards waiting on billions in state aid are burning through loans and emptying reserves. Some social services organizations are shuttering programs and laying off hundreds of workers who care for the state’s most vulnerable populations. Even for Pennsylvania — a state that’s seen its share of knockdown, drag-out partisan fights — this one is particularly worrisome,” The Morning Call wrote.

The stalemate pits Gov. Tom Wolf, “a first-term Democrat and former businessman unaccustomed to political deal-making” against “the Legislature‘s large, entrenched Republican majorities” in a battle with a multibillion-dollar tax hike at stake.

Read more about the implications of the political standoff in The Morning Call here.