Archive for October, 2008
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
By Firm Hope
SNAP helps put food on the table for some 18 million people per month . It provides low-income households with electronic benefits they can use like cash at most grocery stores. SNAP is the cornerstone of the Federal food assistance programs, and provides crucial support to needy households and to those making the transition from welfare to work.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture administers SNAP at the Federal level through its Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). State agencies administer the program at State and local levels, including determination of eligibility and allotments, and distribution of benefits.
Households must meet eligibility requirements and provide information – and verification — about their household circumstances. U.S. citizens and some aliens who are admitted for permanent residency may qualify. The welfare reform act of 1996 ended eligibility for many legal immigrants, though Congress later restored benefits to many children and elderly immigrants, as well as some specific groups. The welfare reform act also placed time limits on benefits for unemployed, able-bodied, childless adults.
Local SNAP offices can provide information about eligibility, and USDA operates a toll-free number (800-221-5689) for people to receive information about SNAP. Most states also have a toll free information/hotline number.
To participate in SNAP:
- Households may have no more than $2,000 in countable resources, such as a bank account ($3,000 if at least one person in the household is age 60 or older, or is disabled). Certain resources are not counted, such as a home and lot. Special rules are used to determine the resource value of vehicles owned by household members.
- The gross monthly income of most households must be 130 percent or less of the Federal poverty guidelines ($1,907 per month for a family of three in most places, effective Oct. 1, 2008 through Sept. 30, 2009). Gross income includes all cash payments to the household, with a few exceptions specified in the law or the program regulations.
- Net monthly income must be 100 percent or less of Federal poverty guidelines ($1,467 per month for a household of three in most places, effective Oct. 1, 2008 through Sept. 30, 2009). Net income is figured by adding all of a household’s gross income, and then taking a number of approved deductions for child care, some shelter costs and other expenses. Households with an elderly or disabled member are subject only to the net income test.
- Most able-bodied adult applicants must meet certain work requirements.
- All household members must provide a Social Security number or apply for one.
Federal poverty guidelines are established by the Office of Management and Budget, and are updated annually by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Get all the details and apply for help by going here.
Topics: Build Self-Reliance, Food and Nutrition | No Comments »
Debt Strategy: What do you pay off first?
By Firm Hope
Paying down your debt can be a great tool to help you stay on track financially, especially when the economy slows. But how do you know which debts you should tackle first? Where do you put your extra money each month so that it will make the most difference? Below we’ve provided a few tips to help you prioritize your debt pay-off strategy.
Priority #1: High-interest-rates
No matter if you have a little or a lot of debt, you’d probably rather spend your money on something besides huge interest fees every month. That’s why most financial experts agree: face those balances with the highest annual percentage rate (APR) first. This tactic can save you money in both the short- and long-term.
The strategy is simple: Pinpoint one high-interest account until it’s paid off, then move onto the debt with the next-highest interest rate. And repeat.
Priority #2: Small balances
Removing a bill or two from the monthly pile can free up at least a few more dollars a month fairly quickly. So if you have several balances that are small, consider paying those off at the same time you are paying down the high-interest-rate accounts.1 Taking care of those easy-to-address, lower balances can give you additional encouragement because you’ll see results right away.
Priority #3: Secured debts
Secured debts are those that are backed by some sort of asset, such as your home or automobile. Unsecured debts, such as credit cards, are not tied to any asset as a basis for the loan. Secured debts tend to be for larger sums of money than unsecured debts, meaning you likely will be paying interest on these types of loans for a longer period of time than smaller, unsecured debt amounts.
That’s why making extra payments on a secured debt like your mortgage has the potential to really work in your favor. By making additional principal payments, you may be able to pay off your loan faster — shaving years off your loan term — and helping you save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on interest payments down the road. Plus, if you pay off your mortgage early, that gives you more money by the end to invest in things like retirement or other savings accounts.
Topics: Financial Independence | No Comments »
You CAN get out of debt!
By Firm Hope
If you’re like most Americans, you have debt. If you’re like many Americans, you try not to think about just how much debt you have and what it’s really costing you. If you did think about it, you might not sleep well.
But ignorance never was bliss, and in order to get out from under the burden of debt, you need to face the uncomfortable (and perhaps downright ugly) truth: it may take you 30 years to pay off that credit card balance.
How can this be, you ask? You may have balances totaling less than $5000. Surely this will be paid off in no more than a couple of years. The credit card company wouldn’t let you take so long to repay them, would it?
The answer is: yes, it would. In fact, if you took 30 years to pay off your balance, you would be the ideal customer.
It’s important to understand that the credit card companies don’t allow you to pay back your debt in small amounts out of the kindness of their hearts. This is how they make their money. Paying the minimum payment (usually around 2% of your balance) each month, guarantees that you will be filling the credit card company’s cash coffers with your hard-earned money for many years to come.
You should be absolutely unwilling to pay only the minimum balance on your credit cards each month. If you can’t afford to pay more than the minimum balance, you can’t afford whatever it was you charged to the card in the first place.
Your payments include both interest and principal (the amount you borrowed). When you pay only the minimum payment, most of it goes towards interest, which is why it takes so long to pay off the original debt. You wouldn’t pay $7,000 for an item that is clearly marked with a $2,000 price tag, would you? Yet that is exactly what you’re doing when you buy it using a credit card with an 18% interest rate and then only pay the minimum balance each month. No wonder you feel like you just can’t get ahead!
If you need to buy on credit, at least do it with your eyes wide open. If you’re already in debt, use these tips to get out and get ahead:
- Don’t get any deeper into debt. Save the credit card with the most favorable terms and cut the rest up. Put the one you saved in a safe place (not in your wallet) and use it only for emergencies (not to include a big sale at Macy’s!)
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Pay more than the minimum balance. Much more. - Shop around for cards with low interest rates, but beware of come-ons that offer a low introductory rate and then take a big jump. The Internet makes choosing a credit card easy, but be sure to read ALL the fine print.
- Move balances on cards with high interest rates to cards with lower interest rates.
- Use your savings to pay down debt. It makes no sense to earn 1 to 3% interest on your savings account while paying 12 or 15 or 18% interest on credit cards.
- Come up with a written plan for reducing your debt systematically.
- Add up all the money you spend each month on credit card payments, and think about what you could do with this money if you weren’t paying it to the credit card company.
One of the best methods of systematically paying off your debts is what I refer to as the Credit Crunch. List your debts, including the balance and the interest rate for each one. Each month, pay the minimum balance on all credit cards except the one with the highest interest rate. Pay as much as you possibly can on this card each month until it is paid off. Then start paying as much as you possibly can on the card with the next highest rate, while continuing to pay the minimum balance on the others. Keep doing this until they’re all paid off. This is the only time you should ever pay the minimum balance on any card.
SOURCE: About.com
Topics: Build Self-Reliance, Financial Independence | No Comments »
L.D.S. Church Helps People Help Themselves During Tough Economic Times
By Firm Hope
Americans are struggling with stagnant wages, rising debts and increased expenses during these tough economic times. What happens when a corporate executive loses a job or a family simply can’t make ends meet to put food on the table? What about the refugee who needs to learn English to get a job or the homeless man who wants to get off the streets before winter sets in?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ extensive welfare program is a system unlike any other because it provides temporary relief while at the same time helping people help themselves. The fine-tuned program has been in operation for decades and is run almost entirely by volunteer labor. Although it was primarily established for members of the Church, the program also assists others who are struggling.
Based on the principle of self-reliance, the Church welfare system includes canneries, farms and factories throughout the United States that provide food and commodities for those in need.
In addition, thousands find jobs annually through its employment centers and on-the-job training at Deseret Industries stores. Thousands more add to their own home food storage to prepare for a rainy day.
Charlene Cummings from Leonardtown, Maryland, learned firsthand how the Church welfare system can change lives. Charlene dealt with abuse as a child and struggles with a diagnosed mental illness, but she recently moved from a supervised living group to her own apartment. Charlene credits much of her newly discovered ability to function independently to the watchful care she receives from her friends at church.
In Charlene’s situation, local members of the Church taught her financial management skills, including budgeting and savings. Because she’s diabetic, members assisted Charlene with menu planning, shopping and other areas involved in managing her illness. When times were really challenging in her life, the Church provided both financial and food assistance to help Charlene bridge the gaps in her personal income. “The Church has become the family I’ve never had; they’ve taught me things I’d never learned,” Charlene explained.
Mormons are counseled, as a part of Church practice, to develop such independence and self-reliance.
“We teach self-reliance as a principle of life, that we ought to provide for ourselves and take care of our own needs,” suggested late Church leader Gordon B. Hinckley. “And so we encourage our people to have something, to plan ahead, keep a little food on hand, to establish a savings account, if possible, against a rainy day. Catastrophes come to people sometimes when least expected: unemployment, sickness, and things of this kind. The individual, as we teach, ought to do for himself all that he can do for himself.”
Another aspect of these teachings is the need to stock basic foodstuffs in case of any type of emergency. The Church operates over a hundred regionally located storehouses and home storage centers to help members gather their food storage. Other plants process specific food items, such as the peanut butter plant in Houston, Texas.
In addition, many Mormons grow and can some of their own food supplies. Paula Henderson of Raleigh, North Carolina, cultivates an urban garden of about 625 square feet in her yard. From the harvest of fruits and vegetables her garden produces, Paula makes pesto and pickles, cans or dries tomatoes and roasts peppers. “Last fall, after the freeze,” Henderson explained, “I gathered all the green tomatoes, put them in the garage and used them as they ripened all winter. I didn’t buy any tomatoes until March.”
Paula’s experience illustrates one of the practical concepts of the welfare plan: utilize all available resources many ways, adopting a lifestyle of economy or provident living.
The concepts of provident living and caring for the less fortunate have been primary objectives of the Church from the very beginning. Based on the Christian principles taught in the scriptures, Church founder Joseph Smith reached out to immigrants, widows and orphans, providing them with sustenance in their stretched circumstances. Brigham Young, another early Church leader, established a Perpetual Emigration Fund to assist newly converted Mormons in their travels to the Utah territory. The fund, repaid to the Church when the recipients were financially able, circulated to help other traveling families.
Such hand-to-hand concern for others continued during the settling of the frontier lands, but gained additional attention during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. Strained financial situations, unemployment and overall discouragement led Church leaders to implement a more formal application of the self-reliance concepts.
In 1936, then-Church President Heber J. Grant announced “that the gospel plan not only takes care of our spiritual needs, but our temporal needs as well. Our primary purpose is to set up a system … under which the curse of idleness will be done away with, the evils of the dole abolished, and independence, thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help people help themselves.” A system of work projects and storehouses was then set up that bridged the unemployment gaps of the time and provided for the immediate needs of Church families.
Such a system endures today, a two-way system where one helps another in need and they both benefit. “If you build self-reliance in people,” noted Dennis Lifferth, managing director of the Church’s welfare program, “everybody grows; it is the essence of the welfare plan. Lives can be changed by personal interest and attention.”
SOURCE: LDS.org
Topics: Firm Hope in others | No Comments »
Mothers find help at North Porch
By Firm Hope
North Porch Women and Infant Centers might best be described as a special kind of emergency room. The waiting area is full of comfortable couches and chairs, and in the storage room the shelves are stocked with baby supplies.
The “patients,” mothers who have got to the end of the week or month and have no money for diapers or baby food for their infants and toddlers, get immediate help. Since 1984, North Porch has provided the emergency assistance to thousands.
It seems fitting that an emergency center for mothers and children was founded by women. Ten years ago, a group of Episcopal women began looking around for ways to help the poor here.
When they decided to establish a drop-in center, the Episcopal Diocese provided space in the form of several storage rooms on the lower floor of Cathedral House, its administrative headquarters. The founders, some of them with their husbands in tow, spent hours making the room habitable.
After the cleaning and painting were finished, they brought used furniture from their own homes and toys for a children’s play area. From the beginning, North Porch’s board aimed for a “homey” atmosphere. The upholstered furniture is worn but comfortable, and the floor is carpeted.
“We didn’t want this place to have a gypsy look,” said Marie Obermann, who is the current board president and one of North Porch’s founders. Only by Referral
Because of limits on financing and supplies, the original board decided that the center’s emergency packages would be distributed on a referral basis only. To spread the word about the new venture, the founders held an open house for the social service workers who would be making those referrals.
Clients began arriving almost immediately. Florence Bustamante, past president of North Porch’s board, said that instead of the teen-age mothers the volunteers had expected, most were in their 20’s. Many brought their infants and older children to the center.
North Porch has had a paid manager since the beginning. For the last seven years, Oleeta Randleman has held the job. Ms. Randleman has a special empathy for her clients. “I sat in that chair once,” she said, pointing to the client’s chair beside her desk.
While the majority of the clients are mothers, grandmothers also visit North Porch, often to get supplies for the grandchildren they are raising alone. Ms. Randleman noted that occasionally even a father will come through the doors. She remembered one father who arrived on a bicycle. “I’ll take anything I can carry on my bike,” Ms. Randleman said he told her.
Sometimes caseworkers from the Division of Youth and Family Services visit the center to take away supplies for newborns who have been left abandoned in Newark hospitals. The North Porch newborn package, which sometimes includes a complete layette, accompanies the infant to a foster home where he or she will spend the first few months of life.
“As far as I know, we are unique,” Mrs. Obermann said.
When the center was first opened, the demand for food and diapers was so great that North Porch almost became a victim of its own success. At the end of each month, and especially in summer, supplies will be completely exhausted. Rather than turning people away, the board instituted a monthly quota system for referrals.
Now, North Porch operates at maximum capacity, serving 50 full-service clients a month, each of whom receives a package containing diapers, baby food and formula. An additional 10 to 15 people receive only diapers. A Limit on Help
The center is open Tuesday through Thursday afternoons, and the flow of visitors varies. Sometimes, Ms. Randleman and the volunteer on duty have the space to themselves. On other days, the main waiting area teems with mothers and children who arrive early, fearing that supplies will be gone before the end of the afternoon.
In keeping with the center’s role as an emergency provider, clients are limited to one package a child per year.
The packages do not come cheap. Though most of the baby clothes and layette items are donated, baby food, formula and diapers must be purchased. The center saves money by buying formula in bulk.
Baby food is purchased at stores in Paterson, where North Porch has established a successful satellite operation in cooperation with the food bank at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. St. Paul’s buyers get better prices from stores, Mrs. Bustamante said, and the Newark center reaps the benefits.
If money is in short supply at the center, so are volunteers. Over the years, the original corps of volunteers has been diminished, and new ones have not replaced them.
Part of the problem, Mrs. Obermann said, is that many suburbanites do not like to drive into Newark. Volunteers willing to make the trip find that parking is difficult and costly. To rectify the situation, the center’s board is offering to pay for parking for its volunteer workers. Determined to Survive
Though the center suffers from problems common to all nonprofit social service organizations, North Porch’s board is determined to make it survive and flourish. There is some chance that Cathedral House will eventually be sold, Mrs. Obermann said, putting North Porch in the same homeless condition as some of its clients. Whatever happens, the volunteers are committed to staying in Newark, preferably in the same neighborhood.
The women who direct North Porch are also hoping to establish more satellite branches. The three-year-old Paterson branch provides packages for approximately 70 clients a month, and because of its affiliation with St. Paul’s Church it does not have the parent organization’s restriction of one package a child per year.
Mrs. Obermann said the board would like to set up a North Porch outpost in Jersey City and possibly another in Dover. “Of course,” she added, “what we would like most of all is not to be needed.”
It is clear that North Porch will be needed for the foreseeable future, and to stabilize the center’s finances, the board is preparing to begin a drive to establish an endowment. This effort was aided by the recent receipt of a small bequest.
Though the center’s anniversary was in February, its board and volunteers have yet to celebrate. The singularity of North Porch is apparent in the fact that the accomplishment of getting through 10 years is less important to those involved than the accomplishment of helping mothers get through the last 10 days of each month.
More information on North Porch
SOURCE: New York Times
Topics: Firm Hope in others | No Comments »
