Not Enough People on Welfare Due to Stigma, Bureaucracy (Ithaca/City of Evil Alert)

Ithaca Journal ^

[governsleastgovernsbest]

MAMTA POPAT/Journal Staff Jessica Brown sits with her daughter Tia Bernegozzi, 4, at their home in Enfield. Brown was on public assistance for four years. She believes the food stamp applications should be more user-friendly.

Program statistics: As of March of this year, 4,148 Tompkins County residents were receiving $340,109 in food stamp benefits. In 2001, according to The Nutrition Consortium of New York 11,412 -- or 12 percent of local residents -- were potentially eligible for food stamps.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

ping

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Just to clarify, this is not an Onion parody!

[tet68]

. "There is money that we aren't seeing because people don't apply."

Ah, the crux of the matter.

Ithaca, city of weevils.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

ping

[goldstategop]

Liberals measure compassion by how many people get on welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people get real work.

[CAPPSMADNESS]

Sunshine Bannister said she's dealt with the whispers and the smirks.

The stares -- prying, judging.

The casual ridicule from others she feels when she pulls out food stamps or nowadays, a debit-looking card, from her wallet in the grocery check-out line. A LABOR ACTIVIST who lives in Ithaca with her 12-year-old daughter,

Maybe if she would quit "activating" and start working - she wouldn't have any need for foodstamps at all?

Or maybe I am just casually ridiculing this poor waif......

[goldstategop]

Gee.... I guess she's a grown up chirl, so we'd better stop being judgmental. There, only liberals are entitled to be judgmental!

[GOPJ]

Liberals push people to go on Social Security Disability. They can stay on forever and don't have social workers watching. It's the next crisis...

Liberals measure compassion by how many people get on welfare. Conservatives measure compassion by how many people get real work.

[StatesEnemy]

They don't want to deal with DSS (the Department of Social Services) and they don't want them in all of their business

Well see, that's what happens when squeeze out spawn you can't afford - by suckling the public teat, you abdicate your right to self respect.

</mean, nasty, libertarian>

[governsleastgovernsbest]

The City of Ithaca, Tompkins County in which it is located, and New York State are all facing severe budget crises. Yet for the Ithaca Journal, the problem is that not enough money is being spent on welfare.

[martin_fierro]

Just to clarify, this is not an Onion parody!

That was my first thought. This article is friggin' SURREAL.

[csvset]

A labor activist.. (Communist apparatchik ?)who lives in Ithaca with her 12-year-old daughter

Where's the girl's father? Not working? Not around? Not involved?

A food stamp application asks potential recipients everything from proof of income to the names of the people living with them.

I guess the state wants to know how many bums are hanging out at one address.

[hellinahandcart]

Some are too proud, Bannister said, and resent answering questions they feel are too invasive. A food stamp application asks potential recipients everything from proof of income to the names of the people living with them.

Imagine that. The state actually has the nerve to want to ascertain that an applicant qualifies financially, and also to try to ensure that they're not issuing funds to a household of double or triple-dippers.

Of course this is all wrong. It's only taxpayer money, after all, so the state should behave like a big, fat fairy godmother and not bother with those mean, hateful applications. Just wave that wand whenever anyone asks...

[governsleastgovernsbest]

the state should behave like a big, fat fairy godmother

Got anyone particular in mind?

[goldstategop]

Let's give them what they want. We don't make corporations jump through the hoops for sucking on the taxpayers teat. Besides, its chump change where individuals are concerned and let's not make a big deal out of it. The rich and poor alike collect welfare payments in this country. Its a rip off both ways on the taxpayers but that's life.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Whenever a liberal taunts me with: "what about corporate welfare?", I respond: "you're right, let's end corporate welfare. Now, are you ready to cut back on social program welfare?"

So far no one has taken me up on the idea!

[csvset]

Jessica Brown sits with her daughter Tia Bernegozzi

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Paging Mr. Brown.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Ah, the return of the indomitable Ms. Kandea Mosley.

Ms. Mosley has been discussed here before.

A Google search demonstrates that she has a long history as a liberal activist. And one of her "pet" causes seems to be keeping people on welfare.

And her advocacy does not end with trying to put more people on welfare. Mosley is, perhaps, most "famous," for her story in which she claimed U.S. troops in Afghanistan were told to shoot women and children. Her story was later disputed by its subject.

Given the above, one wonders if Mosley isn't Ithaca's own Jayson Blair.

Of course, in Ithaca, overwhelming power of politcal correctness would keep Blair, and will probably keep Mosley, employed forever.

Ithaca is the City of Evil.