Interfaith Works Executive Director Becky Wagner recently addressed the organization’s corporate sponsors and discussed some startling statistics. Interfaith Works, formerly Community Ministries, offers a wide range of services to meet the needs of the poor in Montgomery County. Given this perspective, I consider Becky to be an expert on the subject of poverty in the county. Here are some of the statistics she shared:
- Food stamps requests increased 34% to 15,700
- Medicaid recipients increased by 17% to 35,900
- MANNA gave groceries to 35,400 households, a 43% increase over last year
- Interfaith's clothing centers clients shopping trips have increase by 48% (more than half of the 6,000 households are new to the Center)
- Holiday baskets were provided to 14,600 families, a 20% increase
- 17,000 households are on the waiting list for section 8 vouchers (an average 300 are available every year)
- Our 70 bed women's shelter is full; more than 50% are first time homeless
- We are seeing utility bills three times higher than historically
- We received 4,500 calls for assistance and information, a 48% increase
- 43,000 children in Montgomery County qualify for and receive breakfast and lunch at school (during the recent blizzards, these students went without this food benefit for 9 days)
1 comment:
Ms Floreen, thanks for providing these statistics.
Please keep in mind that these may not reflect the vast and increasing numbers of those who are very close indeed to needing major assistance, but who are barely managing to scrape by, too diligent and proud to allow themselves the indignity of asking for help.
Yet sometimes pride must fail in the face of genuine need and dire circumstances.
Despite all of the cheerleading by a lot of the broadcast media, joblessness is still increasing on average, the housing market is not doing well at all, new waves of foreclosure are on the horizon, and there are yet "leveraged markets" which retain tension and could release that tension into related markets with the force of a breaking spring.
For Montgomery, a row of dominos is about to fall, with the State budget reduction of the roads assistance payout from about $46-millions to about $1-million. That's a lot of work that won't be done, a lot of workers that will not work, a lot of bills that will not be paid, and a lot more requests for food assistance, housing assistance, medical assistance... all when the agencies and organizations that deal with such things are already at their limits, and with no sources of funding available and with cuts being made everywhere.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tiding, but unfortunately it's what I'm very good at and you will have to admit I have yet to be shown wrong about any of this.
I know it's budget week and the Council and Executive have been handed a big pile of booby prizes by the State budget folks, who have daunting problems of their own.
Just keep in mind that when I say "as bad as you think it is, the other shoe is yet to drop", I'm not just being pessimistic.
My Free Clue for those who will heed it: If your budget considerations use an assumption of gasoline costing less than $6.25 a gallon by summer 2011, everything else you budget will break.
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