Sam J. Miller/Picture The Homeless: “We have found hundreds of incidents of the police using disorderly conduct wrongly against homeless folks”

In the lives of those experiencing homelessness who attempt to eke out an existence in any city, anywhere in this country, what Ms. Hardeman accomplished is nothing short of miraculous.  

Sadly,  Ms. Hardeman's experience is far from unique.  Many who experience homelessness endure persecution, harassment, and the ridiculous "quality of life" citations for actions most others take for granted.  Crimes such as "blocking a passageway," "loitering," "littering," and "disorderly conduct" are commonly used by police officers to criminalize "acts of presence," penalizing an individual merely for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

None of this is new, either.  If anything, cities around the country appear to be ever more aggressive in persecuting those who don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.  Check out the 2004 report by the National Coalition of the Homeless, Illegal to be Homeless, The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States, then make a toast to Ms. Hardeman.  Her victory did not come easily and it's just a small win  in the war against the homeless...

After Panhandler Says Police Harassed Her, a Judge Tells Them to Stop

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Sojourner Hardeman, 42, filed a lawsuit after she was arrested by the police while soliciting money with a sign.

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Published: August 29, 2011

On Fifth Avenue, somewhere between the University Club and Tiffany, Sojourner Hardeman sat before an empty storefront recently, displaying a cardboard sign that detailed her abilities as a typist and her familiarity with computer software.

Follow @NYTMetro for New York breaking news and headlines.

She advertised “very reasonable rates (expenses low),” adding, “all assistance appreciated.”

Her presence amid the high rents of Fifth Avenue may have surprised some, but then, Ms. Hardeman, 42, possesses what amounts to a Do Not Harass card.

After leaving a job last August and becoming homeless in September, Ms. Hardeman began panhandling on Fifth Avenue. One afternoon in March, she said, police officers arrested her there and detained her in a precinct station house before releasing her without charges.

The arrest led to a lawsuit, filed in May in Federal District Court in Manhattan. The lawsuit has not been resolved, but she has already taken a small measure of victory.

On Aug. 12, a federal judge in Manhattan approved a stipulation between the City of New York and Ms. Hardeman: the city agreed not to arrest or issue a summons to her, unless there was probable cause that she had broken the law. In addition, the city agreed that it would instruct officers in the Midtown North Precinct on the definition of the disorderly conduct statute by Sept. 15.

The stipulation came after Ms. Hardeman complained to the judge that she had been harassed several times by police officers after she filed the lawsuit.

Although it is a matter of standard law that no person should be arrested without probable cause, the fact that Ms. Hardeman managed to secure a judge-approved stipulation was something of a feat.

Ms. Hardeman referred to her style of solicitation as “passive panhandling,” involving little more than sitting quietly and letting her cardboard sign do the talking for her.

“I never broke the law,” she said, describing her time on Fifth Avenue.

There is a law against aggressive panhandling, but Ms. Hardeman’s lawyer, David B. Rankin, said other ways of asking for money were “clearly constitutionally protected.”

The lawsuit stemmed from an encounter in late March. Ms. Hardeman said two officers asked her for identification. She told them she had none, and the officers arrested her. She was taken to the Midtown North Precinct station house, where she remained for about five hours until the police released her without filing charges, she said.

Two months later, Ms. Hardeman filed a lawsuit asserting that the arresting officers had violated her 4th and 14th Amendment rights. Two days later, court papers said, a police sergeant called her on her cellphone asking to discuss the case. Ms. Hardeman said she referred the sergeant to her lawyer.

According to Ms. Hardeman’s complaint, officers approached her four times in July and ordered her to leave the spot in front of the empty storefront, at one point, saying: “You can’t be here. This is Fifth Avenue.”

Each time, Ms. Hardeman said, she refused to leave. On one occasion, officers handed her a disorderly conduct summons, saying she was blocking pedestrians. On another occasion, she said, officers briefly handcuffed her and placed her in the back of a police car before issuing another disorderly conduct summons.

“Midtown sidewalks are high-volume arteries, and blocking pedestrian traffic can cause safety issues,” Philip Frank, assistant corporation counsel at the city’s Law Department, said in a statement. “The stipulation simply indicates that Ms. Hardeman will not be arrested without probable cause. That’s the law for everyone.”

Ms. Hardeman denied that she had blocked pedestrians, saying that the recessed area she sits in is 20 inches deep and that she takes up only 10 inches of a 16-foot-wide sidewalk.

Sam J. Miller, the lead organizer with an advocacy group, Picture the Homeless, said he had heard many complaints from homeless people, accusing the police of arbitrarily issuing them disorderly conduct summonses.

“We have found hundreds of incidents of the police using disorderly conduct wrongly against homeless folks,” Mr. Miller said, adding that many of those charges were later dismissed or could not be substantiated.

Ms. Hardeman said she had been homeless off again on again for about 20 years. She said she quit a job as an assistant at a law firm last August, hoping to find something more fulfilling. A month later, she said, she lost a rented room in the South Bronx. For a while, she worked in Times Square, selling tickets to a comedy club. Then, in March, her resources and stamina depleted, she arrived on Fifth Avenue with a plastic milk crate and her sign.

On a good day there, she said, she can collect enough for necessities: a MetroCard, a rented storage space, the phone bill and some food.

Ms. Hardeman said she did not relish the disagreements with the police. But, she added, after losing her home in the Bronx, she was unwilling to walk away from her post on Fifth Avenue.
“I’m not planning for this to be a career,” she said as she sat on her crate, watching the passers-by. “I’m just trying to meet expenses.”

"Veterans were significantly more likely to have ever engaged in extramarital sex and ever gotten divorced than people who were never in the military"

The title of this piece raised my eyebrow, and while I'm not questioning the veracity of the research, I do wonder whether, if we were to perform this study in 2011 versus 1992, which is the year this data was collected, we might find some different results? 

Although the article states that extra-marital sex among vets is "twice the rate among ever-married non-veterans," I would say that it's frankly remarkable that number isn't higher, given the kind of stress and pressure so many vets must live under when deployed.  I think one's concept of boundaries, of what's important and acceptable, may change a bit when one is repeatedly threatened with the loss of life.  Interestingly however, the authors state that many in the study would have come from "low conflict" eras, which sorta shoots a big ol hole in my theory, but it doesn't know this for sure, so there you go. 

But let's not also forget that in many cases, we're talking about younger men and women here who are serving.  I'm not suggesting here that they are any less likely to obey the tenets of their marriage than anyone else, but to think that,  far from home, loved ones and the comfort of one's spouse for months on end, the body doesn't yearn for physical contact is just plain naive.

In the end, it's hard to use this study for anything more than a plea to fund another, more relevant and timely study.  But even if this was approved, I think each war brings with it different circumstances, and those  variables would wreak havoc with any control one might try to initiate in the study.  For example, the OEF/OIF conflicts have been fought in large part by National Guard troops.  Are they older?  Do they have stressors not normally associated with regular army life?  Does the fact that they aren't normally involved in conflicts play any role?

Extramarital Sex and Divorce More Common Among Veterans

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2011) — Veterans were significantly more likely to have ever engaged in extramarital sex and ever gotten divorced than people who were never in the military, according to new research to be presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

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See Also:

Health & Medicine

• Chronic Illness
• Erectile Dysfunction
• Gynecology

Mind & Brain

• PTSD
• Gender Difference
• Relationships

Reference

• Gulf War syndrome
• Sex linkage
• Interpersonal relationship
• Sexual dysfunction

The study, based on data from a 1992 national survey, found that more than 32 percent of ever-married veterans reported extramarital sex, which is about twice the rate among ever-married non-veterans (16.8 percent).

"To the extent that the patterns observed in these data hold for our current veteran population, the results of this study provide evidence that the concerns about infidelity among spouses of persons who have served in the military are to a considerable degree valid," said Andrew S. London, chair of the sociology department and a sociology professor at Syracuse University. "However, even though the reported rates of infidelity were significantly higher for veterans than non-veterans, extramarital sex was only reported by one-third of ever-married veteran respondents."

Titled, "Veteran Status, Marital Infidelity, and Divorce," the study also found that among those who had ever married, veterans were almost 10 percent more likely to have gotten divorced (38.5 percent compared to 28.9 percent). There was also a strong association between extramarital sex and divorce both for veterans and non-veterans. Overall, even after taking into account veteran status and other factors that influence divorce, those who reported extramarital sex were 2.3 times more likely to have ever divorced than those who reported no extramarital sex.

While the study considered both men and women, London and his co-authors Elizabeth Allen, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Colorado-Denver, and Janet M. Wilmoth, a sociology professor at Syracuse University, said their data set included too few female veterans to draw definitive conclusions about them as a separate group.

"The results of this study provide robust evidence that veteran status was strongly associated with an increased likelihood of extramarital sex and divorce -- at least among men -- and suggest that the odds of extramarital sex and divorce might also be elevated among female veterans," London said. "But, further research that uses larger, representative samples of female veterans is needed to confirm those female-specific associations."

The study relied on data from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), and focused on the 2,308 18-60-year-old respondents who comprised the ever-married subset of the sample. "Although it is now two decades old, the NHSLS is one of the few national data sets that includes questions about whether respondents have ever served in the military, extramarital sex, and marital and divorce history," London said.

As valuable as the NHSLS data are, London and his co-authors believe that their findings raise important new questions that can only be addressed with new data collection. "We do not know from these data whether the extramarital sex occurred prior to, during, or after the conclusion of the respondent's military service, and we do not know the military service status of spouses," London said. "New, relatively large-scale data collection initiatives that follow people over time, examine different stages of life, and collect state-of-the-science measurements of military service experiences, sexual behavior, and marriage and family outcomes from husbands and wives are desperately needed."

In terms of the study's policy implications, London said, "This research can increase our understanding of some of the problems faced by military and veteran families, and can inform the development of interventions used to help them."

For ease of presentation, the authors used the term "veteran" to describe people who had previously served in the military or who were on active duty at the time of the survey. A very small number (26) of ever-married persons were on active-duty at the time of the survey. Although the authors do not have information about the specific time period of military service, they note that the age distribution in the NHSLS suggests that respondents were born between 1932 and 1974, and therefore turned 18 between 1950 and 1992. Thus, veterans (primarily men) in the NHSLS would have been eligible to serve during the Korean War, the Cold War era, the Vietnam War, and the era of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). It is likely that the majority served during relatively low-conflict eras; only some of the older veterans could have served during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and a few of the younger veterans could have served during the first Gulf War. Based on when respondents turned 18, the authors estimate that approximately 78 percent of the ever-married veterans in the NHSLS served prior to the era of the AVF, which began in 1973.

Drug War Stupidity Continues: "proposals to drug-test TANF recipients are based on stereotypes, not evidence."

I am SO sick and tired of the poor being criminalized, stigmatized and targeted for eradication through attrition that I can barely contain myself.

The goddam morons who dream up these invasive assaults to one's personal privacy and dignity don't seem to get the fact that substance abuse is almost always a symptom of a larger problem, and that problem usually revolves in some way, shape or form with a life spent in abject poverty.

So now, instead of giving a person the ability to find employment and as a result find something more important to do with their endless free time than to try and dull the boredom and misery of poverty with drugs, we're going to ensure that those people are trapped into a cycle of poverty, drug abuse and further stigmatization.

Brilliant.

New Drug Tests Target the Poor

A spate of new laws ties government assistance to sobriety—furthering an unfounded stereotype.

By Rania Khalek

The growing number of poor Americans now face a new indignity, thanks to a legislative trend sweeping through state capitols: mandatory drug tests for needy citizens. This year alone, at least 30 state legislatures (including Louisiana, Massachusetts and Illinois) have considered bills that would require people to pass a drug test to become eligible to receive welfare benefits. Some states—including New Mexico, Maine and Kentucky—have proposed extending the practice to those collecting unemployment, Medicaid and food stamps.

At the federal level, this year Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) introduced the Drug Free Families Act, which would require all 50 states to drug test all Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program applicants and recipients. Their proposed legislation languishes in House and Senate committees, a fact that seems to have inspired states around the country to take matters into their own hands.

The state leading the new trend is Florida. On July 1, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF) began administering drug screenings to adults applying for the TANF program, which provides families with an average of $240 a month for a lifetime limit of 48 months. “While there are certainly legitimate needs for public assistance, it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” Republican Gov. Rick Scott said on June 1 after signing the law, which is expected to affect about 4,000 applicants per month who will be required to foot the bill for the test.

While Floridians who pass are reimbursed, applicants who fail are denied benefits for a year unless they enroll in a treatment program and don’t test positive for six months (the state won’t pick up the tab for their recovery). Should they fail a second time, they will be ineligible for three years. All parents who test positive for drugs will be automatically reported to the state’s abuse hotline, likely followed by a visit from a DCF caseworker.

Also on July 1, Indiana became the first state to require drug tests for unemployed people participating in state-sponsored job training programs. Those who test positive will not be eligible for job training for 90 days. A second failure renders a person ineligible for the programs for one year. And under a new Missouri law signed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon on July 12, if there is reasonable suspicion that a TANF recipient is using illegal drugs, a drug test can be ordered—but the law offers no guidance as to what constitutes reasonable suspicion.

A February report from the Washington D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) found that proposals to drug-test TANF recipients are based on stereotypes, not evidence. “People want to attribute their poverty to poor choices and not to our economy, even though we’re coming out of one of the worst economic recessions,” said CLASP’s Elizabeth Lower-Basch. Gov. Scott offered an example of this while on CNN in June, when he claimed that “studies show that people that are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare.”

The facts don’t back him up. According to a 2006 study in the Journal of Policy Practice, substance use is no more prevalent among people on welfare than it is among the working population. Nor is it a reliable indicator of an individual’s ability to secure employment, since 70 percent of all illicit drug users between the ages of 18 and 49 are employed full-time.

Prior to Florida’s law, Michigan was the only state to ever force TANF applicants to submit to drug tests. The policy was struck down as unconstitutional in 2003 after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully argued that it violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. ACLU Florida Communications Director Derek Newton hinted that the organization planned to challenge the law, but he could not comment on possible litigation until it was filed. He did claim that the new law is clearly unconstitutional because “without having individualized suspicion … the government cannot drug test, especially wide groups of people, based on some other criteria,” like their economic status.

The New Orleans-based Women’s Health & Justice Initiative, which advocates for low-income and working class women of color, had this to say in a July statement: “The targeting of welfare recipients … is nothing more than the continual use of stereotypes and myths to criminalize the lives of poor women and their families through invasive and unconstitutional regulatory policies of economic violence.”

Welfare Reform: "The effectiveness of a government aid program can best be judged by its performance during periods of economic turmoil."

For all the praise former President Bill "Cigar-Soaker" Clinton receives, you'd think he'd saved the country from hordes of  boogeymen while singlehandedly fixing the economic problems plaguing the nation.

I remember it differently and while I certainly preferred Clinton over the alternatives, I held my nose on this vote, just like I have for....hmmmm.  Come to think of it, I've held my nose every single time I've voted over my entire lifetime.

Why is that?

Well, it's because none of the people who've run for president of this country have ever really given two shits about me or my "welfare."  Took me many years to realize that I had to make it on my own, and perhaps having some decent mentors in my formative years may have helped change that.  You know what they say, though; better late than never.

But oulda shoulda coulda blows and the truth of the matter is that I was mostly in charge of running my own life into the ground and it was because of government programs that I was able to correct course.  Student loans and Pell Grants helped me go to college, and college helped me to find work that allowed me to do something novel, pay the rent and eat for the month.  While I was going to school, my family received a few bucks in food stamps, that big, ugly paper funny money  that everyone behind you saw when you were using them. 

I didn't stay on "welfare" very long but it's because I had options that most folks in my position, hanging by a fingernail on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, didn't even know about. 

And once you're down there, it's next to impossible to pull yourself up because the deck is stacked against you.  It doesn't take but one economic monkey wrench to pitch poor folk into destitution, a fact I think is lost on most of us who have a credit card or a family that we can turn to in times of desperate need.  Something as simple as a car repair, or needing new tires, or having a few days off due to a medical emergency, can shove a person out the damned job-door and directly into abject poverty.

Worse, rather than having a plan in place that helps a person when they're facing the initial emergency, like perhaps a small, government-backed personal loan system (that had the collection-teeth of a student loan, say) that could stave off or correct that "tipping point" problem, we as a society wait until the financial shit is chest deep on a person before throwing them a frayed, weak-ass lifeline.

The current "lifeline" in most states is an insult, and the trouble one must go through to receive it is not just humiliating, it's infuriating, degrading and often disgusting. This fact coalesces  with the emotions for those of us who watch our government funnel billions of dollars of "aid" to countries that send suicide bombers our way and have fewer morals and ethics (but more oil) than a Texas roadhouse on a Saturday night.

When I worked with the HPRP grant a couple years ago, I remember families sitting across from me, balling their eyes out and telling me how they "never imagined" it could happen to them.  I'm not talking about just the young folk here; I'm talking about people who'd been decades in their position at their company.  People who, until the moment their world turned to runny feces, were part of the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" chorus so many well-meaning but grossly ignorant people sing whenever the issue of welfare comes up.

Sometimes, we need to keep our mouths shut when we don't have a clue about what it takes to accomplish something, and even when one has been able, through perseverance and luck, to overcome the odds and the obstacles (self included), we need to be very careful about what we say, because what it took for us to extricate our situation may not be at all what someone else needs to do to free him/herself from the chains of poverty.

I suppose, if I had the luxury of hindsight to choose today, I'd rather have Bill then "Bama" because at least Bill had enough balls to stand up to assholes, and there seems to be no end to the butt-knots roaming the hallowed halls of Congress at the moment.

But I guarantee you, I'd still be holding my nose while I punched that chad....

Happy Birthday, Welfare Reform

Fifteen years after President Clinton cut a hole in the social safety net, poor Americans are paying the price.

Jake Blumgart | August 22, 2011

Fifteen years ago today, Bill Clinton signed the law that created the program commonly known as welfare-to-work, fulfilling a campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it.” Today, there is little doubt that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act did just that, removing what had been a large cash-assistance program from the social safety net. The decline continues. With the law’s federal authorization expiring September 30 and the numbers of impoverished Americans climbing ever higher, welfare is a dead letter in most states.

(President Clinton prepares to sign legislation in the Rose Garden of the White House Thursday, Aug. 22, 1996, overhauling America’s welfare system. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The effectiveness of a government aid program can best be judged by its performance during periods of economic turmoil. By almost any measure, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the program created by the 1996 law, has failed to cushion the neediest through recessions. While in 2009 the food-stamp program responded to the increased need for government assistance, growing by 57 percent, the number of TANF caseloads merely inched upward. (It was the first time rolls increased since the law was enacted.) Six states continued to shed recipients and the actual number of families in need of assistance rose rapidly. At the heart of the worst recession in 80 years, TANF funds only reached 4.5 million families, or 28 percent of those living in poverty. By contrast, in 1995, the old welfare system covered 13.5 million families, or 75 percent of those living in poverty. 

TANF was perhaps never designed to meet the need; reducing the number of families on welfare was the point of reform. The Clinton law achieved this by instituting strict requirements and radically altering the state-federal relationship. No family can receive more than five years of federal TANF funds in total (there had previously been no time limit). States are required to meet a 50 percent Work Participation Rate, which means that, for half the caseload, one or more adults are required to participate in a narrowly defined set of work activities for 30 hours every week. States that do not meet the Work Participation Rate can be subjected to a financial penalty. Many state and county agencies include their own hurdles to enrollment, including drug testing, finger printing, and mug shots. “In the process of trying to impose very stringent work requirements, we’ve lost the program’s ability to provide a safety net for the people who are unable to find work,” says LaDonna Pavetti, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ vice president for family income support.

The funding mechanism creates further complications. Federal money is distributed in a block grant that provides an annual lump sum of $16.6 billion, with no allotted increases for recession, population growth, or rises in the cost of living. Even in the best of times, this federal funding suffers the persistent grind of inflation (the real value of TANF has fallen by 28 percent since 1996). In the old system, funds increased in response to greater need.

In exchange for the block grant, states are given near-total autonomy over the design of their programs, except when it comes to the emphasis on work. Most eligibility requirements, benefit levels, time limits—even the option of providing cash assistance at all—are largely decided locally. “Programs vary tremendously across the country,” says Sheila R. Zedlewski of the Urban Institute. “Some states are much more generous … continuing TANF as a safety-net program. In other states, it is so minimal that it really isn’t viable anymore.”

Many states choose the minimalist route. In Georgia, before reform, for every 100 families in poverty, there were 98 families helped by welfare.  Now only 8 families in every 100 receive TANF money, and the caseloads have continued to decline during the recession despite a poverty rate over 16 percent In 2010, Wyoming had a bare 306 families on its welfare rolls, or 1 percent of the state’s population below the poverty line. Mississippi allows 12,804 families on the rolls but only gives a family of three $170 a month (which is an annual income that equals 11 percent of the poverty line, or $2,040 a year). Other states simply boot people off TANF long before the federal time limit is up. Arizona shortened its time limit from the typical 60 months to 24 months.

None of this is helped by the fact that even nominal TANF funds are lower today than they were in 1996. Welfare-to-work locked in the levels of welfare revenue states received in the last year before reform took hold. Realizing this would freeze dramatic disparities between states, Congress created a $19 billion supplementary fund to support poor states. A minuscule $5 billion contingency was created in case of recession. Neither of these revenue sources is available any longer; the original contingency fund was exhausted in December 2009, while additional funds provided in the stimulus bill were used up by December 2010. Congress failed to renew the supplement for 2011, leaving already struggling states with even less money.

The truth is, the old system’s benefits never provided enough to lift families out of poverty, and the program offered little funding for work programs, leaving families to stagnate with few options besides cash assistance. The 1996 law tried to address those concerns but did so in the context of almost full employment. Lawmakers were confident that shrinking the welfare rolls would mean more people were going to work. If families were no longer receiving assistance, it meant they didn’t need it because now they had jobs. At least at first, many did. Rebecca Blank, the acting secretary of commerce,  estimated that more than half of adults leaving the welfare rolls initially found employment. Then, by 2001, the number of families living in poverty began climbing steadily upward, and the newly stringent state welfare rules prevented the needy from getting help.

“Between 2000 and the recession, welfare reform’s achievements gradually dropped off,” says Peter Edelman, who acted as one of Clinton’s assistant secretaries of health and human services and quit in protest of welfare reform. “The fact that there were higher numbers of people with incomes lower than half the poverty line was clearly linked to the fact that cash assistance was simply not available in many states.”

The country is clearly no longer operating with full employment, and the number of jobs that the program’s stringent work requirements necessitate simply don’t exist. TANF beneficiaries have also changed dramatically since 1996. When 14 million people were on the rolls, many could find a job with the right aid, training, and motivation. The caseload today is much smaller, and is therefore not so diverse. The families who have struggled through poverty the longest are often dealing with other problems—like domestic violence, mental-health issues, serious medical conditions, extremely low education levels—that limit their ability to find work even when the economy is booming. With the economy in decline, a system that counts on the neediest families finding gainful employment is one that leaves too many without anywhere to turn.

Reforming welfare in a progressive fashion is unlikely, however. A recent Harvard study shows that one of the central, driving passions of the Tea Party’s animus is “‘handouts’ perceived as going to unworthy or freeloading people.” Cash assistance has never been popular in America, and expanding such a program is even less likely in today’s austerity-obsessed Congress and statehouses. In the current political moment, any reforms to TANF are likely to only further weaken the policy. In the meantime, we have abandoned welfare, and many families are suffering for it.

Social Security Disability: "It's primarily economic desperation{"

"Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago."

Just one more reason we need to target our time, our commitment, our resources and our wealth towards the people on the home front first, then kick the rest of the world the crumbs that are left, instead of vice versa....

Social Security disability on verge of insolvency

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press – 36 mins ago

AP – FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2010, file photo Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue 

WASHINGTON – Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.

Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.

The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That, however, would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.

Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.

"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"

"Thousands of troops are like Lanier: not fully fit to serve but in limbo for about two years waiting to get discharged under a new system"

So here's the biggest deal about disability, imho: once you become "disabled" the wait for help and financial assistance begins, and no one is in much of a hurry to get you squared away anytime soon.

What this means for the average Joe or Jane, who has most likely spent any savings and retirement money they had socked away on their short-term needs after they first suffered the disabling condition, is that they wait flat broke and with no money coming in.

Stop for just a second and consider what it would mean to YOU if tomorrow you awakened knowing that you had no more incoming funds and had no idea when you might once again begin receiving incoming funds.

Oh yeah, the prospect is pretty damned terrifying, isn't it?  What would you do, where would you go, who do you think would help you, and how long do you thing that would last?  I can just about guarantee that any family member or friend's benevolence towards your financial destitution will not last as long as it takes to file for, obtain and actually receive your first disability check.

This is because for most folks, that process takes years, not months.  And throughout the process, while you're being evicted, couch surfing, living in shelters or your car, and trying to remain alive while living in abject poverty, your kind and good Disability office is sending you reams of paperwork, appointment notifications, and various correspondence, all to the address you provided them when you first filed.

Chances are that you will no longer be at that address after the first six months of waiting, and chances are very good that you'll miss at least  a portion of that correspondence, some of which is so important that you'll get to start the process all over again.  Chances are also good that you'll miss an in-person appointment, and may the Gods have mercy on your soul and your wallet if you do, because some of those face-to-face get togethers are also so important that if you miss them you'll get to start the process all over again, too.  Oh joy.

So if we're looking at ways to "fix" the problems of the disability application process, the first area we need to examine and correct is the ridiculous wait-times associated with filing and receiving the payments.

Vets have it a skosh better, primarily because they have the ability to receive a little more in disability than those who must apply through Social Security Disability (SSD).  However, they too must endure long waits, skeptical docs, and a process of stigmatization and self-loathing that many civilians don't seem to have to deal with as much.  This is because military culture is such that individuals are inculcated to "finish the mission" and anything that compromises that, especially when it is something "self-induced" such as mental or physical disabilities, is viewed with derision and ridicule.  As a direct result, many in the service will not mention to anyone that they are experiencing some sort of problem, since they've seen what happens to others when those others have spoken up.

This is a problem in more ways than one, since as they proceed through the application process, doctors look for some sort of evidence that supports or refutes the claim of disability by the individual.  If the vet hasn't brought the issue to someone's attention while serving active duty, the physician has no evidence to corroborate the claim and the individual in question looks to be lying.  Definitely not what you want your doc to think when you're asking for long-term support from his/her employer.

Lots of work needs to be done to streamline and correct the problems associated with filing for a disability.  But if we can streamline the application process and shorten the wait times for individuals who clearly need help, the biggest problem - and the one that causes so many additional problems - will disappear, freeing us up to focus on some of the others.  Corrective action of this sort cannot come soon enough....

Aug 18, 3:12 AM EDT Disability system leaves troops in 'vast unknown' By KIMBERLY HEFLING  Associated Press

AP Photo/Stephen Morton Politics Video Buy AP Photo Reprints WASHINGTON (AP) -- Staff Sgt. Nicholas Lanier has entered what he calls the "vast unknown." A combat veteran and father to four daughters, he can't remain in the military because of a serious back injury earned in Iraq. But he can't yet accept a civilian job because he doesn't know when the military will discharge him. He has no clue how much the government will pay him in disability compensation related to his injury, so he can't make a future budget. He just waits. "I don't have any idea what the end stat is going to be on the other side. When you have a family and you are trying to plan for the future, that's going to affect a lot of things," said Lanier, a 37-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., who walks with a limp because of related nerve damage. "The only known is that it takes time." Thousands of troops are like Lanier: not fully fit to serve but in limbo for about two years waiting to get discharged under a new system that was supposed to be more efficient than its predecessor. And the delays are not only affecting service members, but the military's readiness as well. New troops can't enlist until others are discharged. The government determines the pay and benefits given to wounded, sick or injured troops for their military service. Under the old system, a medical board would determine their level of military compensation and the service member would be discharged. Then the veteran essentially would have to go through the process again with the Veterans Affairs Department to determine benefits. While they waited for their VA claim to be processed, many of the war wounded were going broke. Under the new system, which started in 2007 and will be completely rolled out at military bases nationwide by the end of September, the service member essentially goes through both disability evaluation systems at the same time before leaving the military. But the new, supposedly streamlined, system is still such a cumbersome process that it's leaving many service members in limbo, they say. A typical service member's case is handed off between the Defense Department and the VA nine times during the new integrated process. It typically starts about a year after a service member is injured, after it's clear that remaining on duty isn't possible, with a goal of 295 days to complete after that initial year. However, the average completion time after the initial year is more than 400 days, leaving the service member in limbo more than two years. Each snag in the process sets a service member back from knowing the extent of benefits and time of discharge from the military. Troops have had to turn down job offers and delay starting college because they don't know when they can leave military service. And it adds stress on an already vulnerable population. As their cases are processed, many live in the military's outpatient warrior transition units, where they can get extra support, while others do work for the military that they are physically capable of doing. Marine Cpl. Todd Nicely, 27, was wounded by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in March 2010 and had both arms and legs amputated. A piece of paper needing a signature as part of the disability evaluation process sat on a government official's desk for nearly 70 days until Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Patty Murray intervened, Nicely's wife, Crystal, told Murray's committee. "The process of transitioning out of the military has been particularly difficult," Crystal Nicely said. "I understand it's supposed to be a faster, more efficient way to complete evaluations and transition out of the military service. That has not been our experience." The new system has some benefits. Wounded service members no longer face financial hardship as the VA claim is processed because they are still in the military and drawing military pay. Surveys show service members feel the system is fairer than the old one, said Philip A. Burdette, the principal director at the Defense Department's Office of Wounded Warrior Care and Transition Policy. And for some, the extra time in the military gives them extra support. The Army alone currently has more than 11,730 Guard, Reserve and active duty soldiers who are going through the new process, and more than a thousand soldiers from the three components enter the new system each month faster than troops are completing it. "We are growing significantly every month," said Army Maj. Gen. Gary H. Cheek, the outgoing director of military personnel management. "We really don't have an indication of when this will level off, and we are doing everything that we can, even at the four-star level, to try and improve this process and get it to a reasonable time frame." Cheek said it's not good for the Army or for soldiers living in limbo. After the initial year of care, he said, he'd like the military to make a simple determination if the service member is fit to serve. If not, he'd like to see the military accept the VA's rating and get out of the disability evaluation process all together, meaning the service member would receive one rating instead of two. His proposal would take about 90 days compared with the current 400, he said. "For us, we just view it as the right thing to do. There should be a single rating for the soldier. We shouldn't be giving them two ratings. We are confusing them with that. From the Army's standpoint it's easier for us to say we think these costs are well spent. This is a fair way to do it," Cheek said. "All the effort we have to put into running this process, we could re-mission these resources into taking care of soldiers that we are trying to deploy." Cheek's proposal would require a law change, and it could potentially cost hundreds of millions of dollars more a year. House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said it's an option he's willing to consider because the system clearly has flaws. "It's not ready to say it's time to do that, but we have to figure out a way to marry the two ratings systems in a way that doesn't cause a delay for the veteran in getting the care and the benefits," Miller said. --- Online: Veterans Affairs Department: http://www.va.gov/ Defense Department: http://www.defense.gov/ --- Kimberly Hefling can be reached at http://twitter.com/khefling

The Foreclosure Debacle's Hidden Bounty: "First, there was a load of figs, which she intends to make into jam for a cafe that feeds homeless people."

"The point, she and other urban fruit foragers say, is to keep food from going to waste. Ms. Callahan, who works for the Carter Center and lived in Africa for eight years, has seen true hunger and cannot bear to watch food rot."

I have to be careful here not to be too much of a scofflaw because my pragmatism kicks into high gear when I think about surviving on the streets.  With that said, if I was hungry and I had a choice between picking fruit and veggies from a vacant garden versus standing around in a soup kitchen line or stealing food outright from a local grocery store, both of which I have done in my past, I would without hesitation trespass onto a vacant lot and score a feast fit for a street-king!

I reiterate here however that I'm talking about a vacant property.  I wouldn't raid someone's tended garden, nor would I trespass onto their property to pick fruit or nuts from a tree.

And with that said, I would add here that homelessness has been criminalized to insane levels in some cities.  It won't surprise me one bit to see "foraging" end up criminalized either, because, dontchakno, "allowing 'those people' to pick free food right out of the ground enables them to remain homeless!"

Yeah, and when pigs grow wings, they can fly.....

At Vacant Homes, Foraging for Fruit

By KIM SEVERSON

Published: August 14, 2011

ATLANTA — As she does every evening, Kelly Callahan walked her dogs through her East Atlanta neighborhood. As in many communities in a city with the 16th-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, there were plenty of empty, bank-owned properties for sale.

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T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

Ms. Callahan cuts the day's foraging prize: a Sugar Baby watermelon. She also collected five pounds of tomatoes. More Photos »

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She noticed something else. Those forlorn yards were peppered with overgrown gardens and big fruit trees, all bulging with the kind of bounty that comes from the high heat and afternoon thunderstorms that have defined Atlanta’s summer.

So she began picking. First, there was a load of figs, which she intends to make into jam for a cafe that feeds homeless people. Then, for herself, she got five pounds of tomatoes, two kinds of squash and — the real prize — a Sugar Baby watermelon.

“I don’t think of it as stealing,” she said. “These things were planted by a person who was going to harvest them. That person no longer has the ability to. It’s not like the bank people who sit in their offices are going to come out here and pick figs.”

Of course, a police officer who catches her might not agree with Ms. Callahan’s legal assessment. And it would be a rare bank official who would sign off.

But as the world of urban fruit and vegetable harvesting grows, the boundaries around where to grow and pick produce are becoming more elastic.

Over the last few years, in cities from Oakland, Calif., to Clemson, S.C., well-intentioned foraging enthusiasts have mapped public fruit trees and organized picking parties. Volunteers descend on generous homeowners who are happy to share their bounty, sometimes getting a few jars of preserves in return.

There are government efforts to turn abandoned land into food, too. In Multnomah County, Ore., officials offer property that has been seized for back taxes to community and governmental organizations for gardens.

But with more and more properties in foreclosure and large stretches of vacant lots available in some cities, a new, guerrilla-style harvest is taking shape.

Robby Astrove works with Concrete Jungle, a fruit-foraging organization in Atlanta that in 2009 began building a database of untended fruit and nut trees on commercial and public land. The group donates most of the food to agencies that feed the hungry.

Although Mr. Astrove and his colleagues have harvested abandoned community gardens and he has planted pear and fig trees on empty commercial property, the organization cautions volunteers against trespassing and does not pick fruit on foreclosed properties.

Still, he thinks it is a great idea, especially for cities like Atlanta, where one in 50 homes is in foreclosure. Already, he said, there is an underground network among the homeless who work the gardens and trees around vacant homes, he said.

“It’s a perfect storm of vacant properties and people who need a quality food source and an unused resource,” Mr. Astrove said.

One of the best-known urban foragers is Anna Chan, who lives in Clayton, Calif., east of San Francisco. She is called the Lemon Lady and was recently featured in People magazine.

Three years ago, Ms. Chan began collecting fruit that was going uneaten and delivering it to food banks. She soon expanded her efforts to local farms and grocery store produce departments. Since then, she and a group of volunteers have delivered more than 250 tons of fruits and vegetables to the hungry, she said.

But she has never harvested on foreclosed or abandoned property.

“I try to promote the legal way,” she said. “Without permission, it’s tricky. It’s trespassing.”

But she, too, applauds people like Ms. Callahan.

“It’s a beautiful idea,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a neighbor’s tree or a vacant lot or a foreclosure or whatever. It’s you and that fruit tree right at that precise moment when the fruit is ready and you need to make something happen.”

The point, she and other urban fruit foragers say, is to keep food from going to waste. Ms. Callahan, who works for the Carter Center and lived in Africa for eight years, has seen true hunger and cannot bear to watch food rot.

“If food is going bad on the vine,” she said, that says something about us as a society. “It doesn’t matter if the bank owns it. We should be more communal than that.”

Although urban foragers see no harm in picking the produce, one would be hard-pressed to find a real estate agent or a banker who would officially encourage the practice.

Still, a ripe fig is a ripe fig.

“If I lived next to somebody who had abandoned fruit trees, I’d go get some myself,” said Jim B. Miller Jr., the chairman of Fidelity Bank in Atlanta. “You shouldn’t be starting a garden on somebody’s property, and you can carry this too far, but if there’s fruit on that tree, it ought to be eaten.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 16, 2011

A picture on Monday with an article about residents who forage for fruits and vegetables at vacant properties in the Atlanta area was published in error. The East Atlanta home shown in the photograph is occupied; it is not an example of the vacant or foreclosed homes discussed in the article.