Welfare Beat

Half of US Children Will Need Foodstamps

 Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black kids will be on food stamps at some point during childhood.

 Halloween Spook-Out Targets Schwarzenegger and Legislature

LA Radical women held a Spook-Out Against the Budget Cuts on Halloween.  The Halloween action, took place at the park on Olvera Street in LA. It featureed people who are affected by cuts in social services and education. 

Effigies of the Governor and Democratic and Republican legislators were symbolically “burned” by witches for their crimes against poor women, children and students.

“These cuts unfairly hurt poor and working class people while endangering their survival.” said Karen Schmidt, IATSE Local 729.  “Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature voted to drastically reduce education and social services rather than raise taxes on wealthy California corporations.  This unfairly puts the burden on women, children, students and poor people. 

“This violates the witch’s reid: ‘Do as thou wilt, an it harm none’. We are turning it around on them and making them pay for their crimes.”

The Halloween rally was followed by a costumed march. Colorful Aztec dancers joined the demonstrators marching around Olvera Street. They called for the lawmakers to rescind the cuts. Contact: Yuisa Gimeno, Radical Women 2170 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles 90018 ; 323-732-6416 • radicalwomenla@earthlink.net

Good News – Sort of – in California 

On August 1 California passed a law that exempts TANF clients with children between 12-23 or two children below 6 years, from mandatory work requirements!  They did this because welfare budgets were reduced by 30%. The exempt clients can not be sanctioned.

            However a revised version of the law now requires clients to request this exemption from their caseworker. And anyone who was sanctioned before Aug 1 will have to cure that sanction first.  

On November 1 California's In Home Supportive Services planned to terminate benefits to 130,00 of California’s elderly, disabled and blind who receive these Services. They were going force them into nursing homes. On October 19 a federal court ruled against the terminations. Yet many of the new November IHHS requirements violate state law. Welfare advocates may have to sue. The unlawful beat at DSS goes on. 

Contact: Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations (916) 736-0616; (916) 712-0071
kevin.aslanian@ccwro.org

Hurray!! Indiana Terminates $1.3 Billion Welfare Contract with  IBM

Welfare Privatization Experiment a Costly Failure

Indiana has ended its $1.34 billion deal with IBM Corp. to administer food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits. Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM lost the contract when they failed to improve services as ordered by the state last spring.

The Indiana project was one of the most ambitious state efforts to automate welfare. It planned to eliminate hands-on work by government workers. A similar privatized welfare plan by Accenture in Texas failed in 2007.

Indiana's project has come under intense criticism. There are daily complaints of lost documents, delays in approving benefits, lengthy call hold times and wrongful terminations of Medicaid and food stamps. This prompted the state to terminate IBM’s 10-year deal.  IBM’s contract was initially $1.16 billion. Indiana raised it to $1.34 billion to help IBM correct problems by September 2009.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT) issued the following statement:

"I commend Indiana for terminating the contract to privatize delivery of food stamps and other welfare services.  The failures of privatization in Indiana and Texas should serve as a clear lesson. The administration of critical social services should not be contracted out to large corporations that are beholden to shareholders and not the American people."

America, Land of the Desperate Searching for Homes

Oregon schools recently identified 18,000 children and teens who are currently homeless.Across the country 3.5 million people faced life without a home in 2007.

The ruthless elimination of subsidized housing and most public benefits (GA, SSI for drug and alcohol illnesses, AFDC) in the past two decades has caused this giant change in America. This destruction of the Safety Net has taken place during the same two decades that the US has lost tens of millions of jobs. Shame!

Detroit Welfare Rights Organization Demands Bread and Justice

We know these are difficult financial times for churches, organizations and many individuals, but for the poor, things are desperate.

Those of us working with welfare families have never before seen such dangerous conditions for these individuals. Never before has it been harder for them to get benefits they need – and for which they are entitled.

Numbers of applicants are so great. Women are sitting on the floor at the DHS offices. The new computer system, Bridges, is causing havoc. Frustration is leading overwhelmed workers to retire early or resign. This is worsening the situation.

Families are being denied benefits because workers cannot manage the computer system. They lose applications, delaying benefits for months. A woman released from the hospital found her Medicaid cancelled with no notice. She is unable to get her prescriptions filled.

People with utility shutoffs apply for Emergency Services. But their services are turned off before they hear back from the DHS worker. An employed parent applied for day care 3 months ago. But her case was never opened. And the provider is quitting due to no payment. A family with eight children is waiting for the Food Stamps they applied for two months ago.

Administrative Hearings requested by clients take five months to happen. Applicants are without medical help, food stamps, money, and sometimes housing.

For more than 40 years Michigan’s Oakland County Welfare Rights Organization (OCWRO) covered its office expenses exclusively with donations and volunteers. This is no longer true.

We are the only organization in Oakland County providing advocacy, contacting clients’ workers, and doing representation at Hearings. Last year our income was $2,000 less than our expenses. But we are keeping the doors open and expect to get through 2010. However, without increased donations, our doors may close in the following years. Please send donations to the address below.  With a donation you will receive the WRO monthly newsletter.

Maggie Tyson and Marguerite Kowaleski
Oakland Country Welfare Rights Organization
132 Franklin Blvd., St. 202; Pontiac, MI 48341
248-334-8117

Child Care “Rings” ? 

Wisconsin is cracking down on….big businesses like Maximus who frauded Medicaid of $47.5 million? Of course not. The corporate media has been engaging in a witch hunt against African American moms running small businesses, family daycares.  They accuse the women of being paid for child care for more hours than the mom actually works. They are also really upset that daycare staff provide childcare for their own children. 

The legislators received all of their initial info from the corrupt corporate media, not from the actual business women! State Representative Tamra Grigsby described the legislators ranting on the floor about women mentioned in the daily paper, the Urinal (Journal). They were very disturbed to learn that babies got to be with their own moms in a daycare. What a crime!

The legislators immediately passed a law that restricts daycares to a limit of 40% kids from staff members. So now some moms working in daycares will have to leave kids in a different center. State officials swooped through Milwaukee closing daycares that exceeded the 40% ratio—even before it became law!

Then a Wisconsin Legislative Audit reported on Child Care “Rings.”  Again this was based on “Media reports.”  The Urinal reported that in Racine County child care providers operating out of their own homes received payments to care for one another’s Children. But in some cases the children allegedly remained at home with their parents.

(Ever since the drastic welfare laws began denying single mom time with our babies, moms have joked about doing that. “It’s not work if we care for our own kids. But we can get paid to take care of the neighbor kids.  Let’s just switch.”)

The audit reported that the state does “not maintain a database from which it can identify participants who are also child care providers. To help identify providers exchanging children, we compared the street addresses of all participants. Through this comparison, we found five examples of providers exchanging children.”  Very scientific. And very petty.

State legislators are rabidly trying to shut down all Milwaukee family daycare providers. (Mostly African American small businesses.) And remember, this is all based on completely distorted, erroneous, biased media reports. Yet none of the legislators, even our advocate Tamra Grigsby, ever talked to the small businesswomen! That is scary.

The state has closed or suspended 120 centers already.  From the passionate speeches of moms at a recent meeting, most have been closed illegally. State investigators have failed to give moms the required 30-day notice.  They have counted reimbursement payments for county errors  as “duplicate payments.”  They have listed children as non-existent when they were outdoors as required by state rules. They have claimed the attendance sheets were inadequate when they never looked at them.

To assure that uppity urban moms are stopped, the legislators want to deny licenses to any family daycare with a family member who has any criminal record.  They also want to deny the small business owners the right to receive any public benefits. This makes no sense. If a mom’s income is low enough to qualify for public benefits, it is a crime to deny them to her family.