WP: Food Stamp Sign-Ups Low in N.Y.

[Pirate Smile]

Food Stamp Sign-Ups Low in N.Y.
Shortfall Exists Despite a Rising Demand for Provisions

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; Page A17

NEW YORK -- Amid cans of kidney beans and bags of white rice, Denise Conyers sits in her wheelchair at a Manhattan food pantry, plotting to keep the hunger at bay for one more day.

Her food stamp allotment just got cut. She is really not sure why -- she has not been able to work for 20 years.


Home health aide Vida Avant, left, helps Denise Conyers, in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis, turn to the Westside Campaign Against Hunger food pantry to supplement her shrinking food stamp allocation. (By Michael Powell -- The Washington Post)

"It was hard getting food stamps in the first place; they kept asking for more and more paperwork," said Conyers, a fine-cheekboned 53-year-old who was long ago disabled by multiple sclerosis. "Then they said that I make too much on SSI , so they're cutting my monthly food stamp dollars."

-snip-
The shortfall occurs against a backdrop of rising demand for emergency food in New York and across the nation. Food pantries such as that run by the Westside Campaign Against Hunger -- where Conyers was interviewed -- report a 40 percent spike in demand in the past five years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031401522.html

[Skittles]

1. enjoying your tax cuts your rich republican assholes?????

:puke:

[saigon68]

2. Yes they are sleeping on their heated waterbeds

SOUNDLY TONIGHT

[Pirate Smile]

3. kick

[meganmonkey]

4. This is devastating

So many people are in situations like this. In Michigan there is a hotline for people to call for help in getting food stamps because lots of people who do qualify are told they don't by their caseworkers. So a nonprofit started up to help people out.

And the demand for food assistance from non-gov't agencies has increased significantly because of the difficulties getting gov't assistance.

A large number of folks needing help are elderly, disabled, or families with children. It is so sad.

[AzDar]

5. Sickening...my theory is that the Shrubber's strategy calls for stripping

government-funded programs bare, so that people who fall between the cracks will have to 'seek Jeebus' in order to get the basic necessities of life.
Who Would Jeebus Starve???

[WindRavenX]

6. how horrible :(

In the richest country in the world, it sickens me to see that our own citizens still go hungry.

Fuck this.