Blood From a Stone

With the unemployment rate holding unacceptably steady, I'm seeing less of the "new poor." What I mean is that there are less people who are recently unemployed and don't know about the benefits available to them. Instead, we're getting more and more people who seem to feel they are settling into a permanently bleak future. Many of them know what's out there. They've already applied for HEAP this winter or their SNAP application has already been sent to the county.

Last night I found an exception. At a coat giveaway in a Columbus church, I ran into a family so behind the eight ball that the adults had just sold pints of blood to pay for their daughter's birthday presents. Basically, a horror story.

Sure they knew about food assistance, but they didn't know about HEAP or PIPP Plus or how to apply for Medicaid.*

(*The "common application" is called that because it's for both SNAP and Medicaid and Ohio Works First Cash Assistance. But if a client says they're only applying for one of those benefits, sometime they are not screened for the other two.)

So I did what I could to fix it. I helped them fill out the SNAP/Medicaid application. Having been on SNAP, they were familiar with the questions I was asking. I asked them to call their caseworker since only one household member was on their SNAP case. For PIPP Plus, if that goes through, their electric bill will go down from over $100 per month to $10. That's 90 more dollars monthly in pocket. Heck, these guys were eligible for OWF Cash Assistance too. We are talking about over $500 in monthly benefits.

Selling blood to give your child a sense of normalcy should never have to happen. Nor should a six-year-old go without health insurance. I was so happy that this family, with a sugared up six-year-old in tow, was willing to spend 45 minutes with us going through all of these applications. They left happy and I felt as satisfied as I ever have working with low income clientele. I wish this were a perfect world where the need wasn't so great, but we all know this isn't that world.

It should be noted that Erin and I helped other clients in less extreme circumstances apply for benefits. A few SNAP applications, lots of HEAP this time of year. And some voter registrations. But more on voter registrations tomorrow...