Posted on 12/13/2001 2:38:51 PM PST by AmericaUnited
Thursday Dec. 13, 2001; 4:45 p.m. EST
Wife of Flight 93 Hero Gets Cold Shoulder from 9/11 Charities
Three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wife of Flight 93 hero Jeremy Glick is struggling to make ends meet, since an array of charities created to help 9/11 victims have given her the brush off because of a technicality.
Lyzabeth Glick tells the New York Daily News that the national United Way hasn't been much help, telling her recently, "(your husband) was not in the World Trade Center, we're not giving you any funds."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also gave Mrs. Glick and her two children the cold shoulder, explaining, "We're not giving any money to Flight 93 victims."
Even a promise from singer Kristy Jackson, who recorded "Little Did She Know" as a tribute to Jeremy Glick with an eye towards donating the proceeds to victims' families, hasn't panned out. Mrs. Glick says she has yet to see a cent from the song.
She, her young daughter and five-month-old son were at the White House Tuesday to commemorate the three month anniversary of the attacks, where they heard President Bush honoring the husband and father as "one of the heroes of Sept. 11" whose "courage may have saved the White House" when he and fellow Flight 93 passengers foiled the plans of the kamikaze hijackers at the cost of their own lives.
But her husband's hero status hasn't meant much in terms getting some of the money donated to 9/11 victims. After collecting a mere $5,000 from her local United Way and $25,000 from the Red Cross, she's now all tapped out.
With charity after charity giving Mrs. Glick the runaround, she now hopes to find a teaching job to keep the bank from foreclosing on her home.
You mean, $120,000 per year? I do. He lived in New Jersey and was described in one web bio as:
Glick has been one of the top performing sales managers of the San Mateo, Calif.-based Vividence since he joined the company in May 2000.
It is possible that he was making even more than that.
And why is his wife "tapped out" after three months when she received $30,000?
FYI, property taxes of $5,000 per year are not uncommon in New Jersey, auto insurance can run in the $1,000 - $2,000 per year range. Good houses cost over $150,000 and newer homes can run easily into the $400,000 to $500,000 range. Assume that they were living at their means, she could easily be paying $2,500 to $3,000 or maybe much more per month in morgage payments and property taxes. A nice car can run you $300 to $400 per month or more. Assume they had two. So that's probably another $800 per month for the cars and insurance. None of this would have been extravagent in New Jersey if he had the salary to support it. Do I really need to go on? If anyone has the name of the town he lived in (some quick searches didn't turn it up for me), we can find the average home cost and property taxes there if you really want.
Great point. A couple months ago I saw a widow of a WTC victim on the Factor. Her husband was a bond trader for Kantor-Fitz and she claimed that they had always lived paycheck to paycheck and now she was broke and the United Way and Red Cross had not helped. Sad story until you realize that a bond traders make between 200k to 1.5 million a year. How can someone with that kind of income live paycheck to paycheck?
In these days of trimmed down benefits, it's not unusual that he may not have had life insurance or 401K. In the event that he did have 401k savings, there's a 30% tax penalty for cashing in early - no exemptions for death of a spouse. I don't know about New York, but in Texas Workman's Comp is only for injured workers, not a benefit for the survivors of someone who has died. Her children are eligible for social security benefits due to their father's death. It's quite likely that she is in dire financial straits due to expenses of a home mortgage, car payments, etc.
Ummm...memorial service expenses? I know--fees for those damned attorneys. Hell, $30K was probably the downpayment on the retainer.
You don't live in the New York City metropolitan area, do you? I've seen nice $40,000 homes in Iowa. In the NYC metro area, $40,000 might buy you a cardboard box. If you can look up average incomes, also look up cost of living indexes and housing costs for this area.
I, too cannot believe these people are going to lose it all just 3 months after their loved one died. Where's the life insurance money? Where's the savings? If they had none, I find that highly irresponsible of them.
Shhhhh. They don't realize that the fast food places in New Jersey have to start employees at $8 per hour just to find anyone to work in them.
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