Posted on 05/29/2007 6:56:15 PM PDT by Huntress
Nada.
The young mom came to apply for food and child-care assistance. She spoke no English.
Line by line, bilingual caseworker Anna Lambertson reviewed the Spanish version of the woman’s 10-page application.
Anyone disabled in the household?
The woman shook her head.
What about resources? Cash? A checking account? Savings?
Livestock?
The young mom shook her head and smiled apologetically.
“Nada,” she said.
Nothing.
What she did have was a $1,000-a-month job as a cook and a 2-year-old son, whom she brought with her to the Kansas Social and Rehabiliation Services office in Kansas City, Kan.
After the mother left, Lambertson calculated that rent and child care took up nearly all the woman’s salary.
Nothing was left for food.
Nada.
•••
As Congress prepares to wrangle with reauthorizing the Farm Bill, which funds the food-stamp program, anti-hunger advocates are on high alert. Eager to generate public discussion during national Hunger Awareness Week, June 2-10, they worry about the more than 25 million Americans who use food stamps.
They also worry about those who do not.
About 80 percent of eligible Missourians get food stamps, one of the highest participation rates in the country. In Kansas, only slightly more than half the residents who are eligible use food stamps.
What keeps people away? Pride. Embarrassment. Misinformation. When they are hungry, people turn to last resorts — shelters, pantries, senior centers — all of which are served by Harvesters, the Kansas City area’s community food bank network.
Every week, Harvesters serves free food to 60,000 hungry people in the area. That is greater than the populations of Mission Hills, Leawood and Prairie Village combined.
“If we filled up Arrowhead Stadium with 60,000 (hungry) people, people would go, ‘Wow, we’ve got a problem here,’ ” said Karen Haren, Harvesters’ director.
•••
Rosa Fletcher makes about $400 a month at the St. James Place food pantry on Troost Avenue, where she processes the applications of people who come in for free groceries. Fletcher is 45, single and takes care of two cousins — both 11-year-old boys. She gets $389 in food stamps each month, which breaks down to about $32 per person per week.
“We have soup kitchens around,” Fletcher said. “But you want your own food in your own house.”
Fletcher worked as a certified nurse assistant before she nearly lost her left eye three years ago in a car crash. She can’t drive now, so she finds a ride to work every day.
Fletcher prefers the freedom of shopping for her own groceries, but food stamps buy little freedom. At Happy Foods on 31st Street, her purchases often spring from frustrating choices.
Fletcher’s doctor has told her to lose weight to lower her blood pressure and cholesterol. She also is diabetic. Medicine to treat those conditions costs about $365 a month, which eats up nearly all her salary.
Fletcher told her doctor she couldn’t afford to lose weight. In the produce section at Happy Foods, Fletcher pointed to a $1.99 head of cauliflower.
“How can I go on a diet?” she asked. “Tomatoes are $1.49 a pound.”
Her cousins love grapes, but a prepackaged tray costs $3.17. Fletcher buys canned fruit cocktail instead.
Though she will pass on the 5-pound bags of hot dogs for $7.99 — “That’s ridiculous,” she said — Fletcher will buy lots of chicken necks because they are meaty and cheap. She can get four or five meals out of a $3 package.
“It’s not the best thing for your diet, but it stretches a meal,” she said.
•••
Outside of hunger-awareness campaigns, who considers the staggering number of hungry people? The hungriest among us are fed out of sight, anonymously.
Please take a number.
And wait.
The clients at the Bishop Sullivan Center’s food pantry on Truman Road hear their numbers called one by one.
“No. 7.”
That’s an old man in jeans and a baseball cap.
“No. 21.”
That’s a middle-aged couple; the man wears a Chiefs T-shirt.
Nos. 36 and 37 are two women wearing Islamic hijabs.
Most clients avoid eye contact when they walk in the lobby. They don’t smile. They sit and wait.
Thirty minutes. Forty minutes. An hour.
On a busy day, it can take that long before the clients can go around the back of the building to get their free bags of groceries — two bags of dry foods, one bag of government commodities and one bag of bread and meat for a family of four, for instance. No one smiles here.
“Why would they?” asked manager Geno Olmedo.
On this day, Olmedo packs canned vegetables, instant noodles, organic raisin bran and burrito dinner kits for the families. Olmedo manages to pack more groceries into one bag than would seem possible. Over the years, he has mastered filling the bags so he can give his clients as much food as he can. A lucky few will find a grocery-store birthday cake or a pie tucked in their brown paper sacks.
Because recipients cannot use food stamps to buy paper products or personal-care items, Olmedo adds those things when he has them. Some days clients walk out with rolls of toilet paper sticking out of their sacks.
Olmedo says it’s a shame that people have to live like this, but there’s only so much he can do. The Bishop Sullivan Center can give groceries to 50 families a day, first come, first served. Clients know to get to the center around 1:30 p.m., when the 2½-hour distribution process begins. It lasts as long as there is food.
When the food is gone, workers hang a red stop sign on the door.
“Sorry!” it reads. “So many came in for food earlier that the pantry is closed for the rest of today.”
The stop sign is on the door most days.
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MORE ON FOOD STAMPS In Wednesday’s Food section, read about food editor Jill Wendholt Silva’s experiences while taking the Food Stamp Challenge, trying to feed her family on $129.50 a week.
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FOOD-STAMP STATISTICS
KANSAS
184,000 people receive food stamps each month
Average monthly benefit per person: $84.39, or $21.10 a week.
Participation rate (2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s last official count): 55 percent.
The USDA estimates that every $5 in new food-stamp benefits generates $9.20 in economic activity. If Kansas increased participation 5 percent, that would generate $15.1 million more in economic activity.
MISSOURI
Nearly 790,000 people receive food stamps each month.
Average monthly benefit per person: $75.63, or $18.90 a week.
Since 2000, food-stamp participation has risen 81.1 percent.
Participation rate (2003): 76 percent.
NATIONAL (USDA, as of 2003)
About 80 percent of food-stamp benefits go to households with children.
About 23 percent go to people with disabilities.
About 18 percent go to households with elderly.
About 90 percent of the food-stamp households have income below the poverty level. ($18,100 for a family of four in 2002.)
About 38.4 percent have gross incomes at or below half of the poverty level.
To reach Lisa Gutierrez, call 816-234-4987 or send e-mail to lgutierrez@kcstar.com.
Fletcher is 45, single and takes care of two cousins — both 11-year-old boys. She gets $389 in food stamps each month, which breaks down to about $32 per person per week.
$97.25 per week
8 lbs of hamburger $16.00
8 lbs whole chicken $14.00
2 lbs rice $2.00
4 lbs of noodles $5.00
2 bags spinach $5.00
5 lbs apples $5.00
4 lbs bananas $5.00
2 Dozen eggs $3.00
3 Loaves of bread $7.50
2 Gallons of milk $7.00
2 lbs cheese $7.50
2 14 oz Bx cereal $6.00
$83.00 a week - That’s a lot of food
Her cousins love grapes, but a prepackaged tray costs $3.17. Fletcher buys canned fruit cocktail instead.
In the first place, she's diabetic so she certainly shouldn't be eating sugary fruit, and of all fruit, not canned fruit cocktail! In the second place, why is she responsible for feeding her cousins? In the third place, no one but a rich moron buys grapes in a pre-packaged tray as it's absurdly expensive that way. Buy it in a bunch you put into a bag yourself and the price should be no more than $1.99 a pound, tops. But as I say, she shouldn't be buying it anyway if she's corpulent and diabetic.
And they wonder why we get furious. So-called poor people who are obese whining that they can't lose weight. Geez, when I was in grad school I was broke all the time so I was 5-9 and got down to 115 pounds. That's what happens when you really don't have money and don't have recourse to food stamps to keep you obese.
In these tearful stories, there is no account given for how much these programs cost, let alone the cost of the overhead. Most of all, there is no concern for what the taxpayers would be doing with the money had it not been taxed away.
One of the reasons that low skilled people have low wages is because of the high number of non-English speaking, low skill, Mexicans that our government allows to come across the border by policy and neglect of its duties.
“We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry.” ~ Jimmy Carter
We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist as long as corrupt authoritarian dictators control the humanitarian aid and cash given to feed the poor. ~ Listenhillary
I’ll match my charitable giving, as a per-centage of income, against the bleeding heart liberals any time.
Living in KC as I do, one of my targeted charities is Harvesters: They do very good work. I try to get what I can to the charities that do the most and best work... City Union Mission, Salvation Army, Harvesters, Truman Medical Center Charitable Trust (TMC is the hospital for "indigents" in KC, while also a teaching hospital), and I still have to contribute a little bit to "Wayside Waifs," a private animal shelter, but far less than to any of the "human" charities. Funny, I'm Jewish, but other than annual contributions in memory of my mother and father to a local synagogue, my main contributions go to Christian charities... They do great work, and I don't have to worry about them supporting liberal practices.
Mark
cry me a river my two kids and I eat on less than $200 a month and we don’t eat just rice and beans either. Plus kids are homeschooled so no “free” school lunches and breakfasts are included. Stuff is a little cheaper here in Florida closer to the year round veggie farms. Shop careful hit the sales actually cook from scratch most of the time it can be done. God forbid hit the special value produce rack once in a while for variety. BTW frozen cauliflower is still 99 cents a bag oh my you have to cook it. And my 5 gallon bucket cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs on the deck make everything taste better.
Straight to the point, more bleeding heart bunk. Do you believe it ? NADA!
Can anyone please explain this statement?
Yeah, the $9.20 in "economic activity" is the overtime a taxpayer has to work to feed HIS family. /sarcasm
If Harvesters gave away free cars every week and there were 60,000 people in line to get those free cars, would Harvesters conclude that the 60,000 were poor and without cars?
Or might they conclude that when STUFF IS GIVEN AWAY THERE WILL ALWAYS BE LOTS OF TAKERS, regardless of genuine need?
And food prices for the poor continue to increase so that Algore and his minions can use biofuels made from corn and other grains, saving the planet while not caring about its inhabitants.
Are you certain that her subjects even exist?
Solves two problems.
(Stolen from Rush Limbaugh)
That money is used to walk into another store and buy product. The next store uses that money, and so on. It's a ripple effect, and the USDA is trying to put a positive spin on a commodity it needs to push; food stamps.
A similar analogy would that if you get into an accident and are treated by paramedics, the bandages that get used are actually a stimulant to the economy, because the bandage company can use that money (see above), so the more accidents we get into, the better the economy does. It's a government agency putting a positive spin on it.
Good point.
I'm Baptist but I contribute to Catholic Social Services. They help young pregnant girls make the right "choice".
I also remember as a child in the early 50s in Sunday School, giving my nickles and pennies to plant trees in the new nation of Israel.
I've wondered since if any tree I helped plant might still be growing. Trees live a long time, so it's possible.
$389 a month for foodstamps for three people. I spend a little more than that for a family of four and we eat very healthy and even have good food.
$389 a month for foodstamps for three people. I spend a little more than that for a family of four and we eat very healthy and even have good food.
$389 a month for foodstamps for three people. I spend a little more than that for a family of four and we eat very healthy and even have good food.
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