Homeless, elderly and disabled CalWorks families in Los Angeles County can use their food stamp portion of the EBT card to purchase hot meals.

Instead of a check written to the participant is issued a credit card worth the value of the cash benefit.
Instead of paper food stamps (some of which I still have) the value of foodstamps is also transferred to the card.

Typically the EBT Cash portion can be used to pay rent and buy goods and services - the food stamp part for groceries - but not alcohol or cigarettes.

The bonus to the new program available to only a small portion of CalWorks (that's WELFARE to everyone not in Ca.) is that for the first time, populations who have trouble cooking can buy hot meals. Participating restraunts have to agree to be certified by nutritionboards and offer special healthy meals at a lower cost to EBT Dining parties.  If the Dining Credits are denied at the register, the staff will offer to use the cash portion on the EBT Card.

I have all kinds of information, so ask me your questions!

a year ago I added extra lines , the family plan , to my Verizon account. it makes being "stalked" by Mom cost effective. My brother lost his phone so IBought a new one and handed mine down. I bought a motorola Q. it is from that phone i am blogging. How cool is that?

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/NEWS01/701210311/1002

wouldn't it be nice to hear more success stories?!?!?

Wouldn't that be nice. I am only going to the office 5 days a week and am really being strong about working only 8-5 and then directly home.

However, once home I get the call from my adoable but alcoholic and depressed uncle w ho got the short end of the stick when it came to inlaws... (double wide would be too nice for them). So I am walking him through the steps of filiong for State Disability and ultimately SSDI.

I have an aunt in a long term Skilled nursing and get to help people file for conservatorship and learn to make Medi-Cal pay her bills.

I have a dear friend from college at the end of her second divorce with a loser ex who thinks that keeping his kids in a garage with no heating or plumbing  during their visits and then paying $1000 a month for rent means he is providing for his family so expencively that he can't pay child suport, meanwhile she is waiting to see if anyone will call CPS on the situation and worried that she will then lose the kids . . . so I walked her through the steps.

It is Sunday night and I am exhausted. Maybe work will be less taxing!

Huh?!?! Seriously! I know it is hard to find time to date out side of work, but dating a father of 4 whose family is in the system? That is a conflict of interrest and by the way - gross!

Apparently this social worker reviewed the families case in Ohio and suggested the mother be barred from her children (reports are that she beat the kids so this may be a just decision).  Next, the Social Worker begins to date the father (at which time she should have exused herself from the case) and the case went before the Ohio court.

The judge said the fathere was a fit parent - based on the apprasal of the SW and granted him custody with no rights for the mother. The SW resigned her job and can now work anywehere in Ohio without a blemish on her employment record.

I beg the sytem to monitor itself better in the future and pardon me for not moving to the Buckeye State!

By KEN LEWIS
Morris News Service � Alaska

Criminals will find it more difficult to land jobs around children and vulnerable adults after the state adopted more stringent regulations for background checks last week.

The regulations are the latest in a series of changes that started in 2004, aimed at increasing client safety and streamlining the administrative process for the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services. They take effect Feb. 9.

Other recent changes included the creation of a background check unit in 2006. Since March, the state team processed 7,100 applications and found criminal histories in 34 percent of applicants.

A convicted killer’s job application was rejected. So were those of five child abusers, eight sex offenders, 13 felons and several other people convicted of drug-related crimes and other offenses.

Convictions for these “barrier crimes” will block job-seekers from places such as nursing homes, hospitals and assisted living facilities.

Prior to the new regulations, some organizations were not performing fingerprint checks, said Karen Darby, deputy chief of certification and licensing. Some organizations simply allowed candidates to say they had no criminal history.

Now the state will have “one omnibus set” of regulations covering background checks.

The department held public meetings about the proposed changes in 2005 and 2006 and received many suggestions and questions. In response to feedback, officials made changes such as making the barriers based on convictions, not just charges.

Jeff Kemp, formerly with the Juneau Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, said he was concerned about job-seekers who may have a “dark background for crimes they committed a long time ago.”

The state’s main goal is to protect the health and safety of individuals in care, Darby said.

However, some convicts will be given a chance to persuade authorities they have been rehabilitated. If successful, they may be allowed to apply for employment, she said.

What does this all mean for people seeking work with the state? They will need to disclose their histories and let the state check their background. They will submit two sets of fingerprints, and officials will conduct a state and national search.

“What individuals may have been able to get away with in the past, they may not be able to get away with now,” Darby said

Hiow is it that I get electrocuted every time I get out of my car, but the touch screen kiosk at the movies never can tell I am touching it. (sometimes I have to have total strangers rub the screen for me).

Why don't I ever EVER ever remember that movie popcorn and Diet Coke are a deadly combination until half way through the movie when my insides are about to be my outsides!

How come when I sit down to blog all my thoughts run out of my head, but when I am sitting down with a Spartan notebook I can never seem to write fast enuf (pss, hey ISA are you done typing that up yet?)

Why does my daughter love anything that has a skull on it - not IN it, ON it.... it is kinda creeping me out!

Why is the city of LA on a 10 year plan to end homelessness but then let the charges drop on the two old ladies who drugged and ran over homeless men for the life insurance policies they insured them for.

Why can't I ever come up with a wild scheme like that and be heartless enough to perform it?!? okay, I was kidding with this one!

They make leg warmers and fingerless gloves, why can't they make finger warmers? (mine are freezing!)

I will think of more, I just can't remember any right now...

I want a blazer or a scarf, somthing in the ilk of Harry Potter - it sounds too official "DPSS ACADEMY" - i don't even know if I spelled it correctly.

For the past 2 weeks I have been in Norwalk in the Department of Publioc and Social services in training. Today we had the 2nd of 3 tests and I am a little loopy from the pressure. There are too many form numbers and screen names! GN this and I that as well as Mwhatchamacallit! If I don't pass a test I am fired - ya, no pressure there!


Thankfully my teacher is cool or I would simply die! I have been doodeling and drawing each day in class - all my classmates now have portraits and today I made class signs for the teacher. "P'teacher" as I am want to call her, is from Compton and now I am saying "P'teachisms" like "You ruff in the oh-7!" and "why it got to be like dat?!?!"

If I go a little Ghetto on you, please forgive me!

Iwould love to give you a list of where the cold weather shelters are - however: can you believe that I can not find a list of the Cold Weather Sheltersin LA and the San Gabriel Valley? Wow! It is near freezing and there is internet list of shelters. I wonder how many frozen homeless will be counted next week?!?! (psst: I have a list in my cube at work, but I am in training at the moment)

The East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless runs the homeless shelters near my home in cincert with local chirrches. I happen to know that Union Station in Pasadena has employees who work the Cold Weather shelters on the side.

so this one time, this Microsoft nerd left Naked Conversations out on a desk and I read the book in under an hour. I oved it. One of the authors is older today!

Earphones that can selectively screan out the frequency of people singing along with their ipods. Please 9 pound baby Jeebus!  My ears are starting to bleed and pretty soon I am going to cry if I have to listen to much more of this!  Jax just got an ipod and now I wish for deafness!


*****
Favorite Sonyaism - "I don't remember dying, but somehow I am in Hell listening to you sing!

Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 95% Inara Serra (Companion) 85% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 85% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% River (Stowaway) 45% Wash (Ship Pilot) 40% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 35% Alliance 35% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 25% A Reaver (Cannibal) 10%

You are good at fixing things. You are usually cheerful. You appreciate being treated with delicacy and specialness.

Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test
if you can't see this  - come to myspace.com/mmwants

 I love my 80 degree Christmases and baby blue skies on New Year Morning. Openly, I admit to  you that I don't wake up until the Blue Angels or the Stealth Bomber or other aircraft floats over my home. Being 10 minutes from the Rose Parade has it's advantages.... my favorite is that we get to work on the Rose Parade Floats and see them on the trek to the parade route. My favorite NYE I rode the Pepperdine Float from Pasadena to the Parade- who knows how many photo albums I am?

I am sorely going to miss my Disneyland Pass...of course now that a "dear friend" has been there and ruined it for me (by lying about who he took and being less than an hour away for a week but not bothering to come say Hello) . . . maybe I can suffer the loss better . . . anyway:

My FAVORITE thing to do at Disneyland is to play "How many camera's can I use?". In this fun and thrilling game I walk up to the Odd Man Out who I know is never in any of his/her own albums because they are the only one who
a. Has a camera
b. Can take a decent picture

I walk up to them and offer to take picture of them with their loved ones.
Now, I know my ego is like my butt (pretty big and firmly in tact) but I do take wonderful pictures. I like to pose the strangers too . . . I wonder what they think when they get home?


Currently all the Cold weather shelters are open - so I feel better about the brisk 20 degree temperature at night, but I suspect the mortality rate is spiking. To find out how many people are homeless in Skid Row and the L.A. area - wait a couple of weeks. the HOMELESS COUNT is being done by LAHSA the week of January 23rd. Let me know if you want to volunteer- and I will give you the hook up!