Being disabled,I also qualify for SSI, Medicare & Medicaid based on a yearly income of $7,104. Yes, I 'survive' on $592. income per month! I'm a cancer patient, 54 years old & still have my youngest son at home, dependant, while he is struggling, financially, to get through college. Barely able to keep up with medical appointments, my teeth are paying the price from lack of care. This morning, tooth #3 broke off while I was struggling to eat my breakfast. Being ill, I have already lost 25 lbs., I'm now down to 110 on a good day. (I'm 5'6" tall.) With the dental issues, it is a struggle to eat anything that isn't 'soft.' Now, my mouth is hurting, I reach out to find help, anywhere that I can. The local Health Department! Yes! We do have a dental clinic ~ we only charge $50. for each extraction & $100. if they have to be surgically removed &, of course, that HAS to be paid when you come in to have the work done. O.K., $300. just to have these 3 broken teeth removed. WHERE am I supposed to come up with that?? My income is only $592. & I DO have bills to pay. Then again, IF I did manage to be able to have them removed, I would then be, Toothless. Meaning, having NO teeth to eat with. Yeah, I know, that's where false teeth come in at. IF I don't have the money to have them removed, I certainly don't have the money to replace them. And, guess what? Medicaid nor Medicare will cover ANY dental bills! Why do you think my teeth are as bad as they are?? What the heck am I supposed to do?
What the heck am I supposed to do??
[update- march 4, 2009- there is evidently a 250 extra payment for some persons on ssi and veterans- i've tried to find out exact details but kinda hazy. at least its not in mixed up tax refund and my estranged husband can't get his hands on it, like he took my stimulus in 2008.... but, alas, i am not holding my breath. i know it sounds greedy of me, but the rise in inflation and decrease in non-profit ngo help available, including decreasing amounts in food box contents- due to reduced amounts of people who can manage to donate and increased amount of people needing extra help- have made things very difficult. i've been against gambling all my life but i find myself buying scratch tickets when i get groceries, as an investment, not an entertainment....the only chance to get anything extra...] I have loooked and loooked at the stimulus package and there is help for ppl able to work and have jobs, ppl able to work who are unemployed, ppl in school, but no direct help for the disabled who cannot wolrk and are on SSI, SSD, or VA Disability. looks like you have to earn a certain amount before you are "really" affected by the recession/depression... No refund or refundable credit on taxes, as it says a percentage of taxes or 500, whichever is LESS, and i guess "zero" is less. i dunno bout the rest of the ppl on disability, but the folks i know living at a fraction of the poverty level are smacked down by this recession/depression pretty darn bad, especially w state benefit and assistance cuts, shortages at foodbanks and depletion of community sources of assistance
i guess we just don't really matter to the new pres and dems... after all my partner and i make a combined total of 900 a month and only were able to donate about 70 dollars over the course of the campaigns, so we don't count...
Thank you Barack and Michelle!
Thank you for lighting the spark of this movement in America right now. This push to change our country, to rewrite the story from this day forward.
We’ll be writing about how we saw a glimmer of hope in a blind vet’s eyes the first time he got to vote in his 60 years of life since a volunteer was out there, ready to register him, deliver him to the polls, and ensure he was afforded the assistance he needed to vote.
We’ll be writing about the little children we met in low-income streets, so excited about their own future they could say your name out loud – and did, into a campaign volunteer’s bullhorn for all their neighbors to hear.
We’ll be writing about the single mother of three, so motivated by your call to heal our country she’d cart her infant and toddler along, and watch from her minivan, tooting her horn, heralding in hope, and monitoring her 11-year-old daughter’s effort to canvass with older volunteers.
We’ll be writing about the unemployed volunteer, so worried about healthcare coverage she made herself sicker, but who believed enough in your leadership to pack it up and head to a battleground state to ensure you won there.
We’ll be writing about the downtrodden red-state county Democratic party that for the first time in years pulsed with vitality, youth, and achievement as they broke new voter registration and voter participation records and planned a unified victory party like never before!
And we’ll be writing about the blue star families, the moms, dads, spouses, sons and daughters who believe your call to service honors their military member’s commitment, who trust you will be good stewards of their loved one’s military service, and who believe you will keep America’s promise to them as they hang up their uniforms and become veterans.
We’ll be writing the story of America from this moment on. Because you took a chance on us. I want to say, Barack and Michelle, we’ve got your back, and will do all in our means to ensure you make it to the White House.
And as I write these words, I call on my fellow Americans. Please join me in voting for Sen. Obama and bringing change, hope, unity, and vision to America. It is the time. It is the place. Yes we can!
‘Jim Crawford’ Republicans
The GOP is working to keep eligible African-Americans from voting in several states. Jonathan Alter Newsweek Web Exclusive Updated: 2:37 PM ET Sep 11, 2008 It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional. Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver's licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it's spreading. GOP proponents of the move say they are merely trying to reduce voter fraud. But while occasional efforts to stuff ballot boxes through phony absentee voting still surface, the incidence of individual vote fraud—voting when you aren't eligible—is virtually non-existent, as "The Truth About Vote Fraud," a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, clearly shows. In other words, the problem Republicans claim they want to combat with increased ID requirements doesn't exist. Meanwhile, those ID hurdles facing individuals do nothing to stop the organized insiders who still try to game the system. The motive here is political, not racial. Republicans aren't bigots like the Jim Crow segregationists. But they know that increased turnout in poor, black neighborhoods is good for Democrats. In that sense, the effort to suppress voting still amounts to the practical equivalent of racism. In Crawford, the court upheld an Indiana law essentially requiring a passport or driver's license in order to vote. But more than two thirds of Indiana adults have no passports and nearly 15 percent have no driver's licenses. These eligible voters, disproportionately African-American, will need to take a bus or catch a ride from a friend down to the motor vehicles bureau to make sure they obtain a nondriver photo ID. Otherwise, they cannot vote in Indiana this year. To get an idea of how many African-Americans nationwide lack driver's licenses, recall Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when thousands were stranded without transportation. "Crawford Republicans" could make the old "Jim Crow Democrats" look like pikers when it comes to voter suppression. Consider Wisconsin, a swing state. Republicans officials there are suing to enforce a "no match, no vote" provision in state regulations, where voters must not only show a photo ID, but establish that it matches the name and number in the Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Administration database. (Democrats are resisting the suit.) These lists are riddled with errors in every state, as the Brennan Center has proven in its report, "Restoring the Right to Vote." How error prone? Florida wrongly purged tens of thousands of law-abiding, mostly Democratic, voters from the rolls in 2000, claiming they were felons. (This, among other things, cost Al Gore the presidency). Even after the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and worldwide attention, the Florida software is still flawed. It requires only an 80 percent match to the name of a convicted felon. "So if there's a murderous John Peterson, the software disenfranchises everyone named John Peters," Andrew Hacker writes in a recent New York Review of Books. Voters caught in these snafus can have their rights restored but not if they fail to straighten things out before Election Day. Otherwise they are granted "provisional ballots" that are sometimes counted and sometimes not. Even obtaining a provisional ballot can require an appearance in front of a judge in some states. Faced with the hassle, most voters just give up. The ability of actual felons to get their right to vote back varies by state. It's especially hard for felons to vote in Virginia; a bit easier in Pennsylvania and Michigan. (Other countries are far more generous to ex-convicts, figuring that having paid their debt to society they should be allowed to vote again.) All of this would seem to favor John McCain over Barack Obama this year, but some voting-rights trends are pointing in the opposite direction. In Ohio, where the governor and secretary of state changed in 2006 from Republican to Democrat, a new law allows voters to register to vote and fill out an absentee ballot at the same time between Sept. 30 and Oct. 6. This will mean a week of furious campaigning and early voting in a key state. Advantage Obama. With 470,000 students enrolled in Ohio's public colleges and universities (and nine out of 10 are Ohio residents), expect a bumper crop of young voters. The combination of voter suppression and early voting make turnout predictions perilous. And without knowing turnout, most polling is deeply flawed. So about the only thing we know for sure this year is that with the Crawford decision we are seeing a return to the days when one political party saw a huge advantage in preventing as many poor people as possible from voting. That's understandable politically, but also un-American.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/158392
Even with prices soaring it is so nice to see how many people are doing their part in helping the less fortunate whether through volunteering, giving product help, or donations. And many are helping through their websites like me www.guide2kc.com, a website created to help the less fortunate. My website has information where to find help for almost anything. There are a lot of organizations offering help. Right now food pantries are close to being bare. They need your help. The next time you go shopping buy a few extras you can donate to your local food pantry.
Most people don't realize that food stamps do NOT cover items such as soap of any kind, tooth paste, deodorant, diapers, or anything not edible but they are still necessities.
If you have a garden, donate some of your fresh vegetables or donate packages of vegetable seeds. This year I donated enough seeds for 7 families to plant huge gardens. Right now they are picking and canning enough food for a year. I wish I could have helped a lot more people, but the little bit I did do made a difference for 7 families. They are absolutely delighted to have fresh food and to be able to save on their grocery bills. Times are tough for low-income families and a garden is something they can do to really make a difference.
I have a friend that is making it possible for anyone who wants to make ethanol to do it easily. Anyone could do it www.ethanol-still plans.com and yes it is legal as long as you get a permit (which is free) and you can save a great deal of money on fuel purchases. You can even get $$$ credits for making it.
Anything we can do to help with "going green" will not only help us, but help our communities. More and more people are recycling. Isn't it amazing how many items we would throw away can be recycled to make brand new products. Look on packaging for the recycle icon and see just how many packaging items are made from recycled products. And if you recycle the packaging, it will be recycled again and again. And for all of you who have a lot of metals laying in scrap piles on your property, recycle it....get paid for it.
It's great to see so many giving in so many ways and still with all the mortgage problems, there are a lot more homeless this year. This is going to be a tough winter for a lot of people. Do you realize how many thrift stores use the oney they make from reselling all the items donated, give that money to the less fortunate to help with housing, medical care, and help with utilities and food? Even if you have a yard sale and donate the items at the end of your sale, you make a difference.
I'm looking forward to seeing "Obama as President" to see how many changes he can make for the American people. He will look out for the poor....but he will also look out for everyone. Obama has a true American heart. Lets do our part to make sure he is elected.
I thought I made pretty good money for someone that didnt graduate from College. If I lived somewhere in Iowa, Ohio, or Arizona I would probally be living like a queen. But no, I live in the Bay Area, my rent is more than one paycheck and 1/2 of the other.
My family consists of myself, husband, 4 children ages 28, 17, 13, and 9. The oldest moved to Arizona, after six years in the Navy. He could not afford to rent a one bedroom in Redwood City.
We lived in Redwood City for 25 years. All the children went to the same schools. We had roots. Ahh but that changed, I knew the bubble would break, when I just didnt know. We lived in a nice three bedroom home for 16 years. We paid 1100 for ten of those, then 1350. I guess my landlord finally wanted to get on the bandwagon like the rest of the landlords and start charging 2000 a month. Well, the bubble burst in 2004. She was gracious enough to give us 3 free months of rent to allow us time to get money together and move. Luckly we found a place close by, the landlord was an ederly gentlemen who believed in a handshake makes the deal. The rent now was 1800! Oh but we had 2 bathrooms now.
We lived there for 2 years, and guess what, the bubble burst again ! The landlord passed away. God bless him, he was 98 years old. The lawyers took over, and we had to move within 30 days. Ever try and find a place that you can afford, and try and explain the bankruptcy we filed due to my cancer treatment, and move a whole family again? We are Stressed. The kids are stressed, our friends are stressed.
We could no longer afford to live in Redwood City. No way, the rents now are up to 2800.00 a month or more. They want first, last, and deposit. That' s almost 10,000 dollars to move. We no longer could afford to live in the city we raised and were still raising our family. Our incomes were stabile, we both worked, we didnt have any credit card debt, I'm a smart shopper. I knew how to stretch a dollar, my husband also played in a band & made extra money. We had to make a decision to move over to the East Bay. Rent's were cheaper, and you actually got more for your money.
We found a 4 bedroom townhouse with three bathrooms! Upstairs & downstairs! We could have animals! Yes, we are happy. We scraped up enough money to move in. We are paying the same amount of rent 1800, and have a huge home. Great!
Not so great... The schools over here have got big problems. In Redwood City City all the schools even the ones in low income neighborhoods have "Computer Centers"! My son's school in the East Bay has 4 broken dells. I've written to the school, I've written to the school board, I've written to the Big Arnold. No seems to be able to fix these 4 broken dell computers. Any Ideas? Should I write to Dell computer and beg for some computers? I don't know. If you can afford to pay 1800.00 a month for rent, why can't we afford to buy a house? Why is there such a drastic difference in the quality of education in a 25 mile radius? I guess it's time for a bake sale.
All I know is that I can't afford to be middle class.
iamagypsy4u
aka paula
