Record Setting Week

Erin and I just came off a week in which we completed over 50 applications for Ohioans. And these weren't a bunch of quickies like voter registration and Golden Buckeye cards*. We're talking HEAP, food assistance, Medicare premium assistance, and Medicaid. Big, long applications.

Wednesday brought us to Safe Surrender in Cleveland. Safe Surrender is an event held in cities throughout the country where people with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies can appear and have their outstanding warrants taken care of. It lifts a weight off of their shoulders and it makes the authorities happy since it saves them time. These Ohioans are people who are unlikely to go to Jobs and Family Services to apply for benefits because of those warrants. Once those warrants were taken care of, Erin and I wanted to be there to help them out immediately.

We were told to expect 60-200 people. We got over 800. Enough to fill a church auditorium. With an unexpectedly large crowd, it was harder to get people to come into our Mobile. People were waiting hours to get these warrants taken care of and people seemed pretty pooped. Of course, with 800 people, it's inevitable that a few people would want to stop and see what we were all about. We finished about 15 applications that day.

Now, Safe Surrender was only supposed to get busier. It was actually a four day event and we could only make it to Day 1. We were previously booked for a two day foreclosure prevention event in Dayton. You may remember that we've observed some people in pretty dire need over in Montgomery County. No income, no job, no food stamps. That's not the way it ought to be and I've been primed to go back and see if there was more of the same.

There was.

Over the next two days, we saw dozens and dozens of people who were eligible for benefits. The client that stuck in my mind was an elderly woman living with her disabled son on less than $750 a month in Social Security. That is unacceptable. We found at least 25 other people in similar situations.

Erin and I, with assists from Central Ohio Regional Coordinator Zach Reat and VISTA Sarah Olinger, completed 38 applications over those two days. That is a lot. Over 50 over three days, and, wow. I told the organizers of the event that with that many applications, the county will take notice.

We can't reasonably expect to complete 50 applications a week in perpetuity, but it's good to know that if there's a need, that we can step up and finish a staggering amount of applications in a short time. We met the challenge. It's a good feeling.

*I don't mean to downplay Golden Buckeye cards or voter registration. It's just that those applications take only a few minutes. And they don't require a lot of thinking. "Are you 60 years old? Great!" "Are you registered to vote at your new address? Great!"