HARRISBURG — If elected, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf would try to restore cuts or restrictions imposed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett to a couple key poverty programs, his campaign said this week.

Wolf would ask lawmakers to restore a $200-a-month cash benefit for the poor and undo a requirement that food stamp applicants prove that they do not have personal assets above a certain threshold.

Corbett’s 2012 budget eliminated the Depression-era General Assistance cash benefit to save $150 million a year. The GOP-controlled Legislature approved the move, although most Democrats opposed it and a coalition of more than 100 groups, including the AARP and the United Way, asked Corbett and lawmakers to keep the benefit.

Advocates for the poor say that eliminating the cash benefit has contributed to homelessness among people who live on the edge of society because of addiction or mental illness, and that the asset test makes food stamps harder to get even for people who qualify because of the paperwork involved.

Jose Benitez, executive director of Prevention Point of Philadelphia, a nonprofit agency that connects the poor to public health services, said many organizations that provided rooms or beds for people who paid for it with the cash assistance were unable to continue the service after the benefit ended.

If lawmakers do not want to restart a cash assistance program that gives money directly to people who might be addicts or mentally ill, Benitez said, the money could go directly to nonprofit organizations to subsidize a specific service, like shelter.

But instead, the cash assistance simply got cut off without a replacement, he said.

“You can’t do that without expecting some kind of fallout,” Benitez said. “The fallout is that we’re here seeing an increase in homeless people.”

Corbett also added the asset test for food stamps in 2012, saying it would help ensure public welfare dollars aid the people who really needed it.

The asset test was designed to prevent food stamps from going to anyone under age 60 with certain assets worth more than $5,500. The threshold climbs to $9,000 for those 60 and older. The rules pertain to cash, stocks and bonds, but not to pension plans, retirement accounts, home values, life insurance or one vehicle per household. An additional vehicle could be allowed if it meets certain criteria, such as being used to produce income or for job-related long-distance travel.

About 1.8 million Pennsylvanians in 880,000 households currently receive food stamps, and about a dozen other states impose an asset test. Corbett’s Department of Public Welfare projected the new rules would affect less than 1 percent of the recipients, and an agency spokesman said Wednesday that the rejection rate of someone applying for food stamps has remained constant for the last eight or 10 years.