Bureaucratic Delays Create Huge Food Stamp Backlog
In July, Eunice Sierra, a cancer survivor, started trying to get food stamps renewed for her daughter, a 20-year-old single mother with schizophrenia.
Repeatedly, they trudged down to the state Health and Human Services offices at 404 Brady Boulevard in San Antonio. Nearly every day for two months, they joined the early morning line of 100 or so people, many desperate. Each time, they left empty-handed. The most common answer: Their caseworker had “left for the day” by the time their turn came, she said.
The degrading experience drove Sierra to volunteer for The Advocates Social Services in San Antonio ...
Comments (2)
AR
No comment from our illustrious governor?
jpt51
A federal investigation of SNAP would not only reveal intentional neglect of the program by Gov. Rick Perry but negligence by Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden and corny payola by former House Speaker Tom Craddick. Perry is just following buddy Grover Norquist's philosophy of, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Norquist is the guy who paid for Perry to attend a conference on a sailboat in the Caribbean four years ago. With Perry and Norquist's attitude, it's no wonder SNAP is in trouble in Texas. Steve Ogden has been the lone responsible adult in the Senate, not allowing Perry to sweep the TYC scandal under the rug three years ago but he kept silent about SNAP's problems even though he'd been around long enough to know last session the issue was more important than Gov. Perry's pushing more business tax cuts. Tom Craddick used his power and position to ensure his constituents got a piece of the action in Texas' failed privatization effort by withholding support until one of four privately run, Call Centers was awarded to Craddick's district of Midland Someone needs to ask him why cases in Williamson County, next to Austin, sends their client quiries to Midland ,instead of the one located in Austin. The state Is incapable of investigating itself. Too many politicos have their hands dirty. We need an immediate federal takeover of the program to help the most vulnerable among us.