CoolWaters

Thank you for this post!

2 lg cans refried beans 2.00 4 loaves bread 2.00 10lbs potatoes 1.99 2lbs margarine 1.00 3lbs onions 1.89 1 dozen eggs 0.79 5 1lb pkg frozen veggies 4.45 1 jar low-fat mayo 0.99 1lb decaf coffee 1.89 1 lg jar creamer 1.89 1lb sugar 0.89 3lbs hamburger 5.67 1 pkg frozen burritos 2.50 6 boxes mac n cheese 2.00 4 cans tuna 2.00 2 heads lettuce 3.00 1 bunch cilantro 0.50 3 tomatoes 2.83 2 1lb pkgs bologna 1.98 Give or take $40.00/week depending on sales and what is left over from the week before.

I must take issue with this statement. I know from my own personal experience in life that to buy the food I need to keep healthy costs an average of $95/week. That's just for me. To buy the food that causes obesity and other problems costs an average $40/week. That's for both me and my husband.

To me this is very much like the issue of 'assisted suicide'. If someone is at the point of suicide, can that someone make their own choice about having assistance in committing suicide? Isn't assisting suicide really murder? Suicide is something one does to one's self. Having help is not suicide. Is it? It is a mental defect to continue damaging one's self. No matter the reason.

To me there is a problem with the question here. If someone has made such terrible choices in their lives, there is a reason. Until that reason is addressed, the person will never make better choices. But if someone has deteriorated to the point of never being able to hold a job and/or care for themselves, and they continue in their bad choices with no desire to make better choices, therein lies the answer to your question. What person of sound mind and body would actively choose to be like this?

She isn't complaining. She isn't blaming. If what I have posted here makes her look like she is complaining and blaming, then I have done her a great disservice. All I was trying to do was respond to Bowtwi's original post by explaining the life of one woman who was in nearly exactly the same situations Bowtwi had described. Again, if I have painted her as complaining and blaming, I have done her a great disservice. Trust me, she fully understands how she's screwed up her own life. Nobody needs tell her.

I believe this is exactly what is happening with this woman. She really doesn't want SSD. She doesn't want to leave her husband. She doesn't want anybody to do anything for her except to leave her alone. I felt sorry for her once upon a time. Now I know that she has most likely made an active choice to give up. That is her right. Her husband supports her with his income for which he works. She refuses any assistance from her church, food banks, and such. Nobody but her husband is bearing her burden. Other than her husband, nobody else has any right to say anything about her choices. I think it's all a moot point now, Chas. Her experiences in the shelters were a few months ago. She has been living with her husband since then. As I said above, I think this is the way she wants things to go...surrounded by her family.

Look, if anybody knows anything specific I can do to help this woman, I would love the information. Beyond that, she is in the hands of professionals.

Maybe you just do nothing. Maybe you just pray. Maybe you complain about it. Maybe there is nothing that can be done. Whatever the answer, it's a personal answer that is not solved by public anything. That's been proven over and over and over again.

Please find the applicable laws for Kansas and Missouri and post that information here. It would help this woman tremendously and I would be glad to pass the information on to her. Shelters are not obligated to provide for special dietary needs. Again, please post the pertinent laws and I will pass on the information. She was sent to the shelter from the hospital...by hospital social workers and her case manager...who are the resources the shelter would turn to. Again, find the pertinent laws and I will pass on the information. In your mind. Your knowledge is limited. As I said, she was placed in the shelter by social workers and her case worker. What funds? The woman has no money, no assistance, no income. This was part of what I was hoping for by turning her situation in to the authorities. The response? Bitter laughter and pointing to all the changes in the laws that keep people from being institutionalized for longer than the obligatory 72 hours. Templelady, I go back to what I've said before: In your mind. Your knowledge is limited. Milk the system? Garner sympathy? She gets nothing from the system. How is she milking it? She is on her 4th application for SSD. She isn't even trying for herself. Her caseworker is pushing her. Sympathy? From whom? You? People here at GSC? If anything, if she were to read GSC, she would find that people would want to find fault, place blame, mock, ridicule, call her names, say she is lying and gossip in open forums about personal details of her life than be sympathetic to her.

Everything I could think of. Yes. There was (and may still be) an investigation (see above). How it turned out is a legal situation that is not something the public is privy to. From where I stand in this situation, I could not believe that the woman was not helped. Not as a result of my call, but as a result of actions taken or not taken to 'assist' her. I was quite detailed in my post, so maybe you will find your answers by reading it again. Bow, think about this. She was out on the streets and unable to walk very far. I put in an emoticon to indicate that being a tongue-in-cheek remark. None of it appears to have been good. I wish that instead of trusting that the system would step in, I would have been more helpful as a friend. No. She has not recovered.

And Food Stamps are not a Welfare/Entitlement program. They are a farm subsidy program under the USDA. http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/

Can you just imagine what it would do if when people applied for public assistance they were first handed a skills checkoff list and second be informed that their benefits would be equivalent to hours worked at minimum wage? And what about day care and transportation? Uh...have a daycare center at the public assistance offices...then hire applicants/recipients to staff it. Those applicants/recipients with vehicles would be required to transport x number of applicants/recipients without vehicles. Gawd. Somebody wound me up... What about clothes? What about hygiene? Partner with thrift shops, churches, etc. Partner with the Y. Do something besides make excuses as to why these things can't be done.

It is often a rob Peter to pay Paul thing. If they hired more workers to check out applicants/recipients, the money is still being spent. Probably more. The best and most effective programs are those that require a return. As has been brought up, WPA was a great program. It built this nation's highway system, many of the schools, bridges, public buildings etc. Is it slavery? NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! How does one get slavery out of people being paid to work????? And government benefits work out to be far more than minimum wage jobs with no benefits. What I don't get is the complaint that there aren't enough workers in the system. Every time I ever had to ask for public assistance, I volunteered to help them out. Duh! If for every worker that says there isn't enough help that worker were allowed to assign tasks to recipients, then there'd be enough help. Ya know? Can you imagine what would happen if those companies that hire illegal immigrants were required to instead hire public assistance recipients? I have always, always, always been an advocate of putting people to work who are able to work. Why? Self-esteem, resume building, networking, cost efficiency, etc. It just plain makes sense to me. Even if someone is able to work only an hour at a time, that's an hour of help. Ya know?

This discussion may be helped along by some actual facts of the US Budget 2007. If the discussion is about 'government' money, the availability of assistance based solely upon an addiction has been slowly reduced to where, in many states, getting any state assistance is next to impossible...based solely upon an addiction...and getting SSI/SSD is no longer available...based solely upon an addiction. Government spending in this area is one thing we, the people, can do something about...because the politicians like smokescreen issues when other issues are too hot to handle, so if it's government spending that's bugging someone, the next 2 years (until after the Presidential election) are favorable for presenting concerns...and an election year is the hottest iron to strike for any issue to be presented to politicians. Strike often and strike with as much citizen force behind the blow as possible.If the discussion is about private money...churches, organizations, businesses, etc....there are many ways to address concerns. Volunteer to sit on the boards of any agencies, organizations, etc. that one feels is enabling and not helping. If volunteering is not an option, then one can write letters to the board members, request time to speak at any open board meetings (or any other open meetings), contact local media with concerns, etc. If one is giving tithes and offerings to a church, most legitimate churches allow one the option to designate how one's support is used. That is true with many helping organizations and agencies, too. However, one must realize that private monies are just that...private...and not costing one a dime that one does not willingly give. First, since Welfare Reform there is assistance available for only a total of 5 years.Second, remove the children to where? It is by far cheaper to pay Welfare benefits than it is to pay foster care. The average cost of foster care in Kansas 12 years ago was $80,000/year per child...not including medical costs. At that time the welfare benefit, not including medical assistance, for one parent with one child was a total of $365/mo. Each additional child up that by increments of about $60/mo per child to the ceiling of 5 children. A single mother with 5 or more children could get a maximum of $7,980.00 a year. That was less than 1/10 of the cost of foster care per year per child. In other words, removing 5 or more children from the home and into foster care cost at least $400,000.00 per year...as opposed to the $7,980.00 in welfare cash benefits. One of my particular soap boxes! Corporate Welfare is appalling this country! :D Amen. With Welfare Reform, this is no longer the norm. People who are not working at a full time job with benefits are required to spend at least 4 hours per week day in classes, volunteering in the community and a whole host of other job preparation and job searching activities. In the late '80's and early '90's I was part of several pilot groups made up of welfare recipients and designed to test out programs with the ends of stopping generational welfare. Not one of us...generational or temporary recipients...argued that Welfare should be a lifestyle. In fact, many of the Welfare Reform points now in use came out of those pilot groups...in which we the recipients told the government what we thought would be actually help. The 5 year limit with actual and required help was the main point all of us said was needed...over and over again. In fact, many of us felt that 5 years was too long. Unless one has been on welfare, one cannot understand how welfare itself was the biggest contributing factor to generational entrapment. I knew a family in exactly the situations described (actually, several, but I know first-hand the situation in this one family...not just rumors around the 'hood). They got turned in...by me. This family is now 'camping' in their home. I couldn't believe that's all that was done! It turned out that the husband (he works a full time job and is the only income in the household) had for many years refused to pay bills for 'luxuries' such as utilities, clothes, medicines and foods needed to meet medically required dietary needs. Because of the husband's income, the wife could not get any assistance whatsoever. Her health declined to the point of near death, but she had brought herself around...with no help whatsoever...to where she could walk without aid and had lost over 100 lbs. But that just angered the husband. When the wife ended up in the hospital twice in one month, she finally asked for help. Although she had applied for Social Security three times, she had not followed through with the required paperwork and was therefore denied. The most recent denial was 2 months ago. The last time she was in the hospital, she was assigned a case worker. Since then she has been moving more and more towards independence...which includes the $650/mo she may get from Social Security. (Social Security Disability benefits are based solely upon the person's earned income throughout their lifetime. SSI benefits are based upon the current income of the home. If she stays in her husband's home, she will not be eligible for SSI. Even if she lives alone, SSI would supplement SSD only up to $850/mo. She's going to be in the lap of luxury.) In the meantime, because she was not being physically abused and because of her health issues, she was not accepted at battered woman's shelters. She got desperate enough to stay in homeless shelters, but her health deteriorated quickly...to the point that she can no longer walk more than a few feet (because of damage done to knees, hips and feet while walking the streets during her time in homeless shelters...it is a requirement for adults without children to leave shelters between 7am and 5pm), she is still healing from diabetic sores that covered her body (her average blood sugar levels were 400-600+ during her time in homeless shelters due to absolute lack of access to any food besides donuts and coffee during the day and pasta heavy meals at night, stress (which always has raised her blood sugar levels at least 100 points), exposure and lack of ability to keep herself clean during the day), and she is now facing kidney failure. I knew the possibility that my turning in this family would send this woman over the edge health-wise...but she needed intervention. That was my thinking, anyways. At least now she's on the radar screen, so to speak. Maybe it was a good thing, maybe it was pointless. Only time will tell. I do know that if she wasn't 'truly' disabled before, she is now...by all accounts...including professionals...so maybe sending her over the edge health-wise was the best thing for her. <_<