Posted on 02/15/2008 12:39:54 PM PST by IssuesOriented
Hunger pains — Wapello County leads the state in food assistance
By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer
OTTUMWA — Numbers rarely tell the whole story. But when it comes to the well-being of children, decision makers need something to go on.
The Child and Family Policy Center, a not-for-profit agency based in Des Moines, recently issued its “Iowa Kids Count” report — information collected from every county in Iowa to show the trends affecting children, from infant deaths to high school graduation rates .
“Currently, one in seven children in Iowa lives in poverty and one in three is eligible for free or reduced-price lunches,” said Mike Crawford, the report’s author. “The economic conditions for many families have stagnated or worsened over the past six years.”
The study compares statistics from 2000 to 2006. Some things have improved for kids, he said, like the death rate among children ages 1-14 and the number of youngsters being immunized.
What hasn’t improved is the financial situation for families around the state.
While the report shows 19 indicators of child well-being figures, one of the biggest statistical changes in Wapello County is for food assistance or food stamps.
In 2000, there were 3,139 Wapello County residents receiving assistance. For 2006, that number swelled to 5,122. Then, as now, there were about 36,000 people living in the county, meaning 14 percent of residents are now on food assistance, the highest rate in Iowa.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Wapello County Supervisor Steve Siegel. “It’s certainly a problem that we want to alleviate in any way we can.”
He said since he has resided in Wapello County, the high level of poverty in the county has been an issue. And though there has been an increase of 63 percent receiving money for food, he asked what the increase for the state has been in the same period. According to the report, that figure is actually 81 percent.
“I think we’ve worked hard .... to help alleviate some of the poverty in Wapello County, but there’s certainly a long way to go,” Siegel said. “We have our senior commodity food program to help 250 low-income seniors. I just did my deliveries today. We donate to the Southern Iowa Food Bank. And we have our general assistance program.”
He believes some of the problems in Wapello County mirror the problems he believes plague the country.
“There’s a growing inequality between rich and poor. Tax breaks aimed at the rich; increases in energy costs; I also believe food costs have gone up above the rate of inflation,” said Siegel. “So when people are financially marginal to begin with, these costs they can’t avoid can mean they don’t have money for food.”
And sometimes, food stamps aren’t enough to prevent that. Low-income or otherwise strapped residents may end up at social service agencies like the Ottumwa Community Outreach Mission — which serves lunch and dinner for a freewill donation — and the Southeast Iowa Economic Development Agency.
In her job as community action programs specialist at SIEDA, Ramona Vaux sees a lot of hungry people.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “A lot of them might have food stamps, but they might run out.”
The Democrats took over the Governor's Mansion a decade ago and now we see the results.
I was born in Poverty.
I was raised in Poverty.
I lived in Poverty.
I did not like Poverty.
So I left Poverty...............
Awww. Here it comes...
How many of those “1 in 7 children” are illegals?
As Laura Ingraham says, “America has the world’s fattest poor people.”
For the children!
Poverty in America:
One car
One cellphone per adult in the family
cable tv on a 32” 16:9 ratio flatscreen
vcr/dvd/dvdr
microwave, dishwasher
obese children eating fast food
Wonder how many illegals there are in that county.
Well by all means, take my hard earned money away from me and my family and give it to folks who had chillens they couldn’t afford.
Hell they will after all vote Dem.
Idiots.
These poor people need bigger TVs! Let’s come up with a government program to fix this terrible blight on our nation.
Poverty in the news? Must be an election year, and a Republican in the White House.
Good heavens, this is an election year article if ever I saw one. “The economy is going to hell. Only Obama can save us.” etc. etc.
“Currently, one in seven children in Iowa lives in poverty and one in three is eligible for free or reduced-price lunches,”
The school lunch program is about 45% fraudulent. That is the kids don’t actually qualify for the program.
If Iowa has that many poor people, someone needs to take a long, hard look at those folks to see what they’re doing wrong to get themselves into that situation. What’s their self-ordained unemployment rate (as in, “I just don’t feel like working today — where’s my Independence card?”), their illegitimacy rate, and their Welfare Vulture Culture rate (as in folks who have decided to languish on welfare rather than look for gainful employment).
Seems pretty easy to qualify for food stamps:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp/faqs.htm#3
To participate in the Food Stamp Program:
Households may have no more than $2,000 in countable resources, such as a bank account ($3,000 if at least one person in the household is age 60 or older, or is disabled). Certain resources are not counted, such as a home and lot. Special rules are used to determine the resource value of vehicles owned by household members.
*
The gross monthly income of most households must be 130 percent or less of the Federal poverty guidelines ($1,799 per month for a family of three in most places, effective Oct. 1, 2006 through Sept. 30, 2007). Gross income includes all cash payments to the household, with a few exceptions specified in the law or the program regulations.
*
Net monthly income must be 100 percent or less of Federal poverty guidelines ($1,385 per month for a household of three in most places, effective Oct. 1, 2006 through Sept. 30, 2007). Net income is figured by adding all of a household’s gross income, and then taking a number of approved deductions for child care, some shelter costs and other expenses. Households with an elderly or disabled member are subject only to the net income test.
3. Do I need to be a U.S. citizen to receive food stamps?
Certain non-citizens, such as those admitted for humanitarian reasons, those admitted for permanent residence, many children, elderly immigrants and individuals who have been working in the United States for certain periods of time, are eligible for the Food Stamp Program. Eligible household members can get food stamps even if there are other members of the household who are not eligible.
The problem with these people living in poverty today is that they view all successful people as "sellouts" and never bother to improve themselves in any way that would lead to advancement. Yet somehow that's everyone else's fault but their own. *sigh* Depressing isn't even a strong enough word for their clamoring to their own enslaving chains.
They need to visit Haiti if they truly desire to see the face of poverty. Americans do not know poverty.
as secondivisionvet said: “How many of those “1 in 7 children” are illegals?”
what the report refused to look at was the rate of increase of illegal workers into the tax-subsidy-bloated agro-industrial sector, in iowa
so, taxpayers send their hard-earned money to ethanol producers in subsidies at the rate of 51 cents a gallon, which affords them to increase demand and price of the commodity they need, from which the already highly profitable corporate farms can vastly increase their production, facilitating expanded use of illegal labor across the entire local labor pool
and then everyone involved in this scheme says you are not paying enough taxes to support the imported poverty - imported poverty facilitated by illegal labor demand made possible by tax subsidies to the hugely profitable agro-industrial sector
"Ottumwa, a town of about 25,000 people in southeastern Iowa, embodies the tensions.
The recent influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants here and in other towns has sparked a cultural clash that unsettles many longtime Iowans.
Ottumwa was 95 percent White and just 2.8 percent Hispanic in the 2000 U.S. census.
Keith Caviness, Romney's Wapello County chairman, predicted that any candidate who doesn't take a strong position against illegal immigration will face difficulty in the Midwest. He complained that an Ottumwa meat-processing plant advertises for workers on a billboard in Los Angeles, which immigration experts say is not uncommon because of a rural Iowa labor shortage and high job turnover.
"I have a problem with importing people into our community who shouldn't be in our United States to start with, legally, and then giving them work and allowing them to roam around in our community doing things that may or may not be acceptable to our community," Caviness said."
So true, these numbers are draw out of thin air.
“Currently, one in seven children in Iowa lives in poverty and one in three is eligible for free or reduced-price lunches,”
Absolute B.S.
The way "poverty" is determined is purely a political strategy.
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