Area residents wait for hours for food, line of cars stretches 1 1/2 miles

When the Smith Chapel Food Pantry in Logan opened at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, the line of cars waiting to get in stretched for 1 ½ miles.
Cars began arriving at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday night, and by 5 a.m. there were already 106 cars filled with people waiting in the dark, cold night for food.
The pantry hands out food items on the fourth Monday of every month to families that register with the facility. More than 80 volunteers were on hand on Nov. 24, working out in the rain to get food to the families who might otherwise go without.

“Have a smile on your face today and give everyone a kind word. This may be the only kind word they get all week,” said Dannie Devol to the volunteers just before the pantry opened for the day. Devol and his wife, Jane, run the facility, which also has a thrift shop that is open on Wednesdays and Fridays. The thrift shop helps to support the pantry, and also allows area residents to buy clothing items for $.50, coats for $1 and other items for very low prices.
In October, the pantry served food items to 759 families, which represented more than 2,000 people in need. The number of people helped on Monday was expected to be even higher.
Devol starts each day at the pantry leading the volunteers in a prayer and short pep talk. Then, the volunteers get to their stations and two lines of cars begin slowing making their way through the parking lot, getting food items placed in their vehicles at each station.
James Thompson got in line at 12:30 a.m. on Monday so that he could get through the line quickly after it opened.
“I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t get here then,” he said. He also receives food stamps, but that program only provides for enough food for his family for about two weeks. The food pantry items help his family get through the month, he said.
One woman, who only wanted to give her first name, Cindy, explained that she got in line at 4 a.m.
“I wouldn’t be able to make it without this,” she said. Cindy works part-time, but the job does not pay enough to cover all of her bills or provide for her and her daughter.
One man, who also did not want to give his name, explained that he is disabled and unable to work. He got in line at 4:20 a.m. in order to get food.
While he is very thankful for the assistance, he wishes that he could be one of the people giving out the food instead of being one of the people receiving it.
Tammy Tippie got into the line at 4:30 a.m. She explained that the food items the pantry hands out make it worthwhile to spend much of the night sleeping in her car out in the cold.
“I’ve got my blanket,” she said. Tippie moved to Logan a few months ago and was able to find a job, but it does not pay enough to cover all of her expenses. She did not know how she would have made it through Thanksgiving without the help from the pantry, and said it means a lot to her and her family.
The food pantry hands out items such as cereal, tomato paste, vegetable soup, tomato juice, green beans, corn, peas, rice, dried cherries, applesauce, beef stew, ham, onions, noodles, potatoes, apples and bread. On Monday, it also provided turkeys and turkey breasts for Thanksgiving.

Volunteer Susan Aldridge helped to coordinate the turkey hand-outs on Monday. Aldridge is the store manager for the Logan Wal-Mart, and explained that the store had 31 employees volunteering at the pantry. The store previously has had as many as 68 volunteers at the pantry, and Aldridge explained that Wal-Mart donates $5,000 to the pantry every time a certain number of volunteer hours are worked there by the store employees.
“It humbles you,” Aldridge said about working at the pantry. “You look at all the people in line and you’ve got to be thankful for what you have, and you want to give something back.” The people going through the line are also very thankful, and Aldridge said she enjoys talking to them.
One woman told Aldridge that her grandchildren were coming to her home for Thanksgiving, and she was worried she wouldn’t have anything to feed them. The food bank was a big help for her, she said.
One store employee worked until 11 p.m. on Sunday, and then got in line at 1 a.m. so she could pick up food for two elderly shut-ins that she knows, Aldridge said. Many people, like that employee, go through the line picking up items for other people even if they are not receiving any food themselves.
George Ralph spent his day giving the people in line fliers about the free medical clinics held at local churches for the uninsured and underinsured. Ralph said that it is striking to see how long the line is for people waiting for food, and said it shows how deep the poverty problem is in the region.
“It gets a hold of you,” Ralph said.
The poverty problem is growing in southeast Ohio and the holidays can often add to the burden faced by local families. The fact that Thanksgiving and Christmas both come at the end of the month, while the government benefits many people receive don’t provide for enough food or funding to make it through a whole month, also makes it difficult for many families.
For more information on the Smith Chapel Food Pantry, call Devol at (740) 974-1356 or log onto smithchapelfoodpantry.com

By Nick Claussen
Community Relations Coordinator, Athens County Job and Family Services
(740) 797-2523
clausn@odjfs.state.oh.us

Slackers?

The campaign for a “Real Bottom Line of How Much Money it takes to Survive” has provided a much-needed resource to define what amount of money a family needs to meet its basic needs. The research and hard work put into this effort are to be commended. If nothing else, it confirms the inadequacy of our financial safety net of public assistance programs. It also explains the constant struggle our working poor families are facing in their effort to make ends meet. It further suggests that government programs should look to this new higher standard as a guide for eligibility. This would, of course, expand the benefits many of our financial assistance programs offer to many more families, which is a worthy goal. No one in America should do without basic human necessities.

Unfortunately, in a sample letter to the editor (see below) issued by the supporters of this plan, there seems to be very inappropriate comments about “welfare” and those receiving cash assistance as being “slackers.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a “slacker” as “a person who shirks work or obligation.” The writer seems to be making the point that somehow the assistance we give to working families is not welfare and in the process chooses to malign those families who currently must rely on cash assistance.

The term “slacker” cannot be applied to folks receiving assistance under the “reformed” welfare system adopted in this country ten years ago. Welfare reform added time limits, work requirements, reporting requirements, and sophisticated computer monitoring systems to resolve the issues of who “deserved” public assistance raised by all the old myths about welfare. Folks receiving public assistance benefits cannot and do not shirk work or their many other obligations. However, apparently some of the advocates for the poor have adopted the currently fashionable political posturing of some that public assistance given to folks who are more like “us” is not welfare and, therefore, is acceptable. Folks who are more like “us” are more “deserving” of our help.

Instead of trashing the poorest people, those on cash assistance, we need to build stronger coalitions among all low-income families and individuals. The truth is that all means-tested financial assistance programs are welfare. That includes Medicaid, child care subsidies, housing assistance, earned income tax credits and HEAP. It baffles me as to why some programs are seen in such a positive light and others denigrated. Someone receiving financial assistance due to limited income is in the same boat as millions of other people who are sick, disabled, unemployed, divorced, elderly or just working at a low wage job. We should all be proud that we live in a country that feels a responsibility to help its less fortunate citizens. Pitting the poor against each other does not advance our efforts to create a just and fair society.

Jack Frech 11/10/08
Director, Athens County Department of Job and Family Services

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DRAFT Op-ED for Submission to Daily Newspaper Editorial Editor by Low Income Advocate
Please review carefully and personalize with individual country information

What’s the REAL Bottom Line of How Much Money it Takes to Survive Here in XXXXX County and Why It Matters

As ______[job title and organization]_____________________________, I’ve learned that how we as a nation define, measure and report poverty is emotionally charged and can often generate more heat than light.

Many times, when the conversation turns to poverty here in America and in our community, logic and rationality can go out the window. And when that happens the possibility of any useful follow-up discussion about what, if anything, can and should be done to assist those who are not making it financially becomes almost impossible.

But in these scary and challenging economic times, it’s even more critical to have these kinds of discussions as more and more Ohioans find themselves closer to the margins and living on the edge.

I’ve seen it many times. Just using terms like “poverty”, “poor” or “low-income” can conjure up arguments, resentments, political agendas and a host of other distractions that don’t help us get any closer to answering the real question that we as citizens of any income level or political viewpoint should want to know: Exactly how much money does it take to be economically self-sufficient right here in our community? In other words, exactly how much money is required to be able to pay the basic bills without any family, charitable or government assistance?

If conservatives, liberals and everybody else could just find common ground on what economic self-sufficiency really means in the real world – what the REAL bottom line for survival is – then we could discuss and debate what we should do about it in a more meaningful way. We might not agree on the policy prescriptions or action agenda for helping people become more self sufficient but, at least, we could start the discussion on the same page.

With a new President and Congress (on the horizon) the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies (OACAA) – the organization representing Ohio’s XX locally-governed poverty-fighting organizations – believed the time was right to answer this question for each of Ohio’s 88 counties. So, they asked the University of Washington to develop something called The Ohio Self Sufficiency Standard for 2008.

The Ohio Self-Sufficiency Standard uses a proven formula and real world data to determine exactly the minimum amount of money it takes to pay the rent, buy food, cover child care, get to work and just cover the basics without any savings, fun or frills in each of Ohio’s 88 counties.

Right here in XXXXXX County, for example, two working parents with an infant need to earn at a minimum of $XX,XXX a year to be considered self sufficient; that’s $X.XX per hour per parent. Again, this represents the REAL bottom line of what it takes to just get by. That figure is well above the federal poverty guidelines, which determine eligibility for programs like Head Start and Medicaid that can help low income working people better be able to hold onto a job. That figure is well above the minimum wage. In fact that figure is more than most jobs in Ohio pay.

The Ohio Self Sufficiency Standard presents a budget and the necessary income to meet that budget for various family sizes and configurations in every Ohio county along with full information on how the researchers determined each county’s self-sufficiency budgets. You can access the full report at:

www.oacaatraining.org (or newspaper web site, if posted there).
As you look through the report and digest the numbers keep these things in mind:

• The families who live below the self-sufficiency standard or even below the federal government’s definition of poverty – which is usually around half of the self-sufficiency standard – are by-and-large working families. They aren’t on welfare. They aren’t slacking off. They work low wage jobs and are treading water. Sadly today, with fewer jobs and lower wages in every corner of Ohio, working is too often not a ticket to true self sufficiency;

• In order to survive and be able to raise a family on wages that pay below the self-sufficiency standard, we believe – especially now -- that a solid system of work supports needs to be in place – child care assistance, health care, job-training and skills development, housing vouchers, etc. – to reward work and help assure families can cover the basics that low wages do not until additional training and job success moves them toward real self-sufficiency;
• We also believe that the federal Poverty Guidelines used to determine eligibility for these kinds of work supports should be adjusted to be closer to the self-sufficiency family budgeting standard in the report rather than the artificially low and outdated methods used to calculate them today.

Look through the self-sufficiency standard for your county and ask yourself if the numbers make sense as a way to determine a survival baseline. If they do, then join us in the coming dialogue on how we can assure more Ohio working families meet and ultimately exceed this standard.

XXXXXXX is XXXXXXXXXXXX

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No bail out for our poorest children

There are 3 million children in America, including 130,000 in Ohio, who depend on the reformed welfare system to meet their basic needs. The families of these children comply with all of the time limits, work requirements, extensive verifications and numerous rules of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant. An average family of two on TANF in Ohio receives $336 a month in cash assistance and would also be eligible for a maximum of $298 a month in Food Stamps. When combined, this only provides an income of roughly half of the Federal Poverty Level. Ohio’s benefit amount is close to the national average.

These families cannot meet their basic needs. The economic depression is here for them now. They must frequently depend on food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters. They are doubled and tripled up in their housing.

The annual TANF appropriation for the nation is about $16 billion. The Food Stamp program appropriation is about $35 billion. Both have been reauthorized by Congress in the past few years. There were no emergency meetings of Congress, no pleas from the White House, no media attention to address the 3 million American children who are hungry by design. Yet, Congress is willing to spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street.

Jack Frech
Director

New child support rules hit low income parents in the wallet

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services’ Office of Child Support is proceeding to implement new provisions related to cash medical support. Cash medical support is an additional cash obligation imposed on the non-custodial parent that was intended by the federal government to help offset the cost of health insurance premiums paid by the custodial parent and/or help cover the cost of uninsured medical costs, things that Ohio was already dealing with in its child support orders. But instead of using the cash medical provisions to help custodial parents, Ohio has instead chosen to use the provisions primarily as a way to recover Medicaid costs. As a result, low income working custodial parents with a child on Medicaid will now receive less child support.

Were it not for other examples of how the Strickland administration is expanding social services to cover people at higher income levels by taking away support from people at lower income levels, this would be just another sad example of one hand of government not knowing what the other hand is doing. On the one hand, the Office of Child support is implementing new rules that will allow the state to recover part of the cost of providing Medicaid coverage by allowing the state to take part of a low income working custodial parent’s child support. Yet on the other hand, Governor Strickland established his Anti-Poverty Task Force which has a mandate to recommend ways to reduce the number of Ohioans (3.4 million) living below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. It is impossible to believe that any low income working custodial parents will be elevated out of poverty by having the state take part of their child support payments. It is also impossible to believe that any low income working non-custodial parent making between 150% and 200% of poverty will be elevated out of poverty by having more money withheld from their wages to pay cash medical support to the state.

The amount of child support lost to the custodial parent is a regressive tax on low income working custodial parents. By taxing these custodial parents the governor continues his practice of taking funds away from people with lower incomes to pay for expansion of services to people with higher incomes. Governor Strickland intends to pay for his promise to expand Medicaid coverage to children at higher income levels by taking child support funds that would have previously gone to low income working custodial parents. The cash medical provisions also operate as a regressive tax on the non-custodial parents. The cash medical amount for one child for a non-custodial parent making $16,640 per year is the same for a non-custodial parent making $44,000 annually, $775.00 per year. The cash medical amounts to 4.7% versus 1.8% of the total annual income for each non-custodial parent respectively.

Another example of where the governor has taken money from people with lower incomes and given it to people with higher incomes is the governor’s expansion of day care and his increases in day care reimbursement rates using federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds. Instead of using the TANF surplus to help address the immediate needs of the 130,000 poorest children in Ohio receiving Ohio Works First (OWF) benefits who live at about 50% of the poverty level, Governor Strickland choose instead to increase day care eligibility to families earning up to 200% of the poverty level and to increase the rates paid to day care providers regardless of their income.

This regressive taxing policy being implemented by the Strickland administration reverses a national philosophical trend to see the child support program as a family support program and not as a government cost recovery program. While considered a way of recovering money for the state when it was initially implemented, the child support program is now generally seen as an important and effective means of providing valuable financial support to a family, i.e., a “family friendly” program.

This trend was continued at the federal level with various provisions within the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA). In the DRA, Congress provided several opportunities for Ohio to help enhance the financial support available to low income families that receive child support. But Ohio has failed to implement any of the options. Instead, Ohio has chosen to reverse course with its child support program and make Medicaid cost recovery a primary program goal. In moving toward that goal, the money that the custodial parent loses is taken by the state. That is certainly not family friendly.

Therefore, one obvious recommendation for Governor Strickland’s Anti-Poverty Task Force should be to stop the Office of Child Support’s implementation of new child support rules surrounding the collection of cash medical support. Adopting the “family friendly” provisions allowed by the DRA should also be one of the recommendations of the governor’s Anti-Poverty Task Force.

In these times of shrinking budgets and hard choices, those with the least should not be asked to pay for the benefits provided to those with more. Yet, the Strickland administration continues to tax and take away from the families with the lowest incomes in order to expand benefits to those higher incomes. Our priorities must be to use scarce resources to help those with the least first.

By implementing the provisions surrounding cash medical support, Ohio is implementing changes to its child support program that will make the calculation and payment of child support more complex, confusing, and costly for parents, more difficult and costly for employers and which provides no additional benefits to the children served by the program. A low income working custodial parent with a child on Medicaid will receive the same Medicaid coverage. The difference will be that the non-custodial parent will pay more and the custodial parent will receive less child support under these new rules.

~ Gregg Oakley, Athens County Child Support Enforcement Agency

Back to school, but not for free

This is a re-post from last year that we feel is still relevant, if not more relevant, today...

There is a long held myth in this county about the availability of a “free” public education. While it is true that many states have constitutions that require the availability of a free education, that is not true in all states. Ohio is one of the states that do not include specific constitutional language guaranteeing a free education.

In fact, Ohio goes a bit farther by actually having laws that permit schools to charge fees. Ohio simply regulates the type of fees schools can charge. It is therefore common for schools throughout the state to charge a “fee” of anywhere from $25 to $50 simply to attend school. Many schools also require that students bring in supplies ranging in cost from $10 to $50. These requests go far beyond simple paper, pencils, and crayons to include such items as tissue, plastic bags, and toilet paper. A family with two young children may have to pay as much as $200 to get their kids in the school door. This does not include the expense of school clothes, shoes or other personal items that a child may need.

While this expense is a hardship for many families, for some, it is a catastrophe. The truth is there are hundreds of thousands of families in Ohio whose income falls below $12,000 a year. For those families, $200 represents twenty percent of their income for the month. I wonder if folks with a household income of $60,000 per year would be so willing to accept such fees if they were being asked to pay $1,000 to send their children to public school?

Fees charged by schools have become a perfectly legal and acceptable form of taxation initiated at the hands of the local school boards with few limitations or restrictions. These fees are also an extremely regressive type of tax, one that hurts those children in families who are already having the greatest challenges succeeding in school. Poor families are dealing with the day to day crisis of meeting their basic needs at home. Items like food, clothing, shelter and transportation cannot be taken for granted in families living in the very lowest income levels.

It is these same children that already miss out on educational opportunities outside of school like vacations, educational toys and books. These same children are frequently precluded from participating in extra curricular activities in school. There are many people who are poor and are struggling every day just to get by. The last thing they need is another financial hurdle to overcome, just to have their children participate in the local public school.

All children should be able to attend school and participate in school activities without money in their pocket. The concept of universally available education is one of the absolute cornerstones of our democracy. Education is intended to level the playing field for underprivileged children.

Unfortunately, we are slowly but surely allowing one of our mainstream institutions, our public schools, to go the way of the “have versus have not.” To be sure, there are many schools that have chosen not to charge fees and have solved their financial problems without turning to this form of “taxation” on parents. Additionally, there are thousands of teachers who simply dig into their own pockets to help provide those supplies needed for children to participate in activities. All of this is unnecessary.

The average cost of education in Ohio’s K-12 schools is about $9,500 per child per year. The $100 collected in fees and supplies is roughly 1% of this amount. Perhaps the next increase in school funding could be targeted to eliminate school fees and pay for supplies. A “free” education would not be difficult to attain. The educational benefits to children in our society would be far greater than the minimal increase in funding that may be necessary to offset this loss of revenue.

Ohio needs to adopt the principle and practice of a free public education.

--Jack Frech, Director