Homeless Count in the WCH

Erin and I traveled down South to Washington Court House, the seat of Fayette County. The Community Action office invited us to attend a "point in time" homeless count. Volunteers canvassed the city and county to get an official count of the homeless population there. Some of those homeless men and women came down to the community offices to provide information about their specific situation. And we were there to make sure they were being taken care of in terms of food assistance.

In Franklin and other larger counties, the homeless remain a severely underserved population. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but a less obvious one is that most counties require their clients to have an address to qualify for food assistance. No address means no place to send the Ohio Direction Card means no benefits.

The first thing I did was ask the folks at Community Action if clients could use their address for homeless clients. They said it wasn't necessary.

"Jobs and Family Services just uses their own address. Doesn't every county do that?"

No. Every county does not do that. Your county is clearly awesome.

So here we have a county where most of the long term homeless population is able to eat because of food assistance. Not great for Erin and I performing applications that very day, but that is a good problem to have. Every homeless person that walked into that office already had food assistance.

I hope every county follows Fayette's example. I understand that might not be possible in larger counties. I understand that it means taking a lot of extra steps. But it's worth it.

Paper Plate Project

More and more Russ and I are seeing this situation-- working folks that are affected by the economy and left scrambling:

You can access a news video here talking about the project. Or, go directly to the project website here.

Tax Season is Upon Us!

You remember tax season, don't you? The joy of seeing Ohioans get thousands upon thousands of dollars in federal and state refunds juxtaposed with the many hotels and fatty meals that come with spending so many hours on the road. It's a nomad's life for the Mobile Tax Counselor. The avalanche of tax clinics appears above the horizon...and I kind of can't wait.

But before all that we decided to go to some food distributions in Northeast Ohio. Specifically, in Akron and Medina. Despite being in such close geographic proximity, Akron and Medina are two very different places. But one binding similarity is that both towns have loads of people who qualify as food insecure. So when Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank invited us out, we were more than happy to attend.

Enough onions to make Bill Raftery proud

We ran into problems, some good, some bad. A lot of the good problems were encountered in Medina. The distribution was held at a county building that also serves as home to the Medina County Jobs and Family Services Center. There was clearly a very good relationship between the county office and the people in line to pick up food. We talked to dozens of people and got dozens of "we've got that" when asking about SNAP Benefits, HEAP, and even Medicare Premium Assistance. People were aware of the benefits they were eligible for and had gone out and got 'em.

The problems in Akron were a little trickier. Unfortunately, they're the kind of problems you'll run into in any urban area and there aren't any real fixes. The real problem is waiting. Long waits for appointments with Community Action to get E-HEAP. Long waits to apply for public housing. Long waits for a caseworker to call you back. That stuff is a lot harder to solve. Hopefully we were able to provide some help by referring people to other organizations like The Salvation Army for immediate utility assistance.

Coats, clothes and gloves were on hand for those who needed them.

After all was said and done we did help some clients get in touch with their local OBB sites and, of course, we helped some clients sign up for benefits right then and there. Now taxes await.