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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2009)
JANUARY 23, 2009 Legislature weighs individual, state needs for assistance Advocates for the disabled and poor push for the restoration o f General Assistance against a dismal state budget forecast BY MARA GRUNBAUM STAFF W R ITE R ■paying for food isn’t the problem. Dinner is J fried catfish - $1.68 a pound at the . discount supermarket - collard greens im a can, and cornbread made possible by a ;sh jug of m ilk found abandoned in the library rking lot. The problem, says 53-year-old Lynne Walker, is ying for everything else: deodorant, batteries, dsheets, toilet paper. Walker says her severe anxiety and post- aumatic stress disorder make steady nployment impossible. She has applied for deral disability benefits, but like many others, ;r case has been pending for more than two sars. In the meantime, she has no significant >urce of income. Until 2005, Oregon’s General Assistance rogram paid $314 a month to disabled citizens ith little or no income while they waited for leir Social Security cases to process. In 2003, le state cut General Assistance from its budget, :aving about 2,500 Oregonians who had been on le program in the lurch. W a lke r receives $175 a month in food stamps nd a $75 utility stipend from the Housing authority of Portland, which subsidizes her one- edroom Gresham apartm ent She earns about ___month collecting cans and bottles to return $15 for the deposit She stretches that money as far as she can, she says, but without General Assistance, she cannot afford many basic necessities. “Every time I use toilet paper, or every time I squirt dishes or use laundry powder, it generates anxiety — like a panic attack,” Walker said. “People who are disabled can’t work. How can they live from the time they’re disabled until the time they get their benefits?” Every year, 2.5 million Americans apply for disability benefits through the Social Security Administration. There are currently 4,574 new applications pending in Oregon, according to the state Department of Human Services. To deter fraud, application procedures are stringent. Two thirds of disability claims are in itia lly denied. Those applicants can appeal — and about a third of them do - but a massive backlog of cases means it can take two or three years before their cases are finally resolved. In December, The Oregonian reported that the wait for a hearing at the Portland Social Security office is one of the longest in the country. People with children can receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a monthly cash See ASSISTANCE, page 14 P H O T O BY M A R Y Y A J K O Lynne Walker, in her apartment with her dog, are hoping a new effort to restore General Assistance fu nding will help fill the gap while her enrollment for Social Security benefits languishes in a massive backlog.
