And even if PBHA were to receive enough donations to open its summer camps to all applicants, Dominguez said, that would not be an adequate solution to the problems at hand.

“I don’t think PBHA can be a bandaid solution for what the state should be taking responsibility for,” she said. “I don’t think the other programs should be shut down and PBHA should be the solution—I think the other programs should stay open.”

Ultimately, Dominguez says, the only real solution can be a budget which pays more attention to such social services.

“The state has got to prioritize these young people,” she said.

Fonseca-Sabune said she had seen the children who might otherwise have been PBHA campers wandering the streets idly.

“I wonder what they expect the kids to do,” she said.

And Natsui said that he, too, was unsure what would happen to the campers Chinatown Adventure has been unable to enroll.

“It’s hard to keep in touch with some of them because you don’t see them anymore,” he said. “They either spend time at home with extended families, or some might work.”

Fonseca-Sabune said she was “pretty disappointed” that the government had brought about such situations with the new budget.

“Boston and Massachusetts have a strong tradition of supporting youth, and with the budget cuts this year it seems that tradition is falling away,” she said.

And Dominguez, too, expressed dismay at the new state of events.

“Boston has done an amazing job” at funding youth programs, she said. “If those programs are cut in a couple years we’ll go 10 years backwards.”

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.