Quote:
|
Originally Posted by wolf
Good luck to your friend. And I hope the baby machine gets hoist by her own petard in some fashion or another. I think that system abusers need to be gone after much more aggressively, and kicked out on their unworthy asses. I see far too much of that kind of nonsense not to get torqued over it.
|
I agree. Like I said, there are legitimate reasons why a single Mom might need help, but someone who is not conning the sytem is going to use birth control to avoid bringing more fatherless children into the world for Uncle Sugar to support and she'll make use of whatever training and educational programs might be available to her to get off the system as soon as possible. On top of that, Little Miss Meth Freak trades the food stamps that should be going to nutritional food for her kids and hands them over to her dealer for crack, instead. I called DHS on her, but do you think they'd investigate? Nah!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by wolf
What I'm finding unbelievable is the $579.00 amount ... I regularly see disability checks (never employed, non-depdendant) of $1000-$1300.
Most of my patients have more walking around money than I do.
|
A lot depends on whether your outfit takes Medicaid or not. If they don't, you won't see the poorest of the poor come through the doors. Also, the states have the option of supplementing the baseline Federal SSI stipend of $579/month. Colorado and many other states don't. PA might. People who become disabled before age 18 can sometimes qualify off their parent's benefits. If their parent has a CONSISTENT record of high earnings, the "child" will have a higher benefit, especially once the parent is deceased because then something called a "surviver's benefit" kicks in. The "child" can be 40, BTW, as long as the onset of the disability was before age 18. Then there's VA disability benefits for disabled offspring of vets. Those individuals often get checks in the amount you describe.
Unfortunately, a significant portion of this country's disabled acquired their disability AFTER age 18. Someone who was a housewife, for example, married for less than then 10 years like Clarity Rose is just out of luck and in Colorado, anyway, expected to get by on that $579.00.
This is also often the case with schizophrenics. The age of onset of schizophrenia is generally between the ages of 18 -22, as I'm sure you already know. Such individuals are thrown onto SSI and get only the $579.00/month. And that's if someone in their family has the stamina to corral them up and get them through the process. Then someone has to encourage them to stay on their meds which schizophrenics seem to hate taking. That condition has got to be the most profound, difficult illness for both the family and society to deal with. Schizo's off their meds can be extremely spooky and they comprise a large segment of the homeless population. I 've had the occasion to deal with a number of them (I'm sure you've seen zillions come through the door where you work). The ones that I know who stick with their meds are like children, telling me the most amazing stories of their lives - all hallucinations, of course. But they're just so damn helpless and often predators will take advantage of them.
