Cash Assistance

WASHINGTON - New government figures show a profound change in welfare spending, money shifted from cash assistance into child care, education, training and other services intended to help poor people get jobs and stay off welfare. Cash assistance payments now account for less than half of all spending under the nation's main welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, federal officials say. The proportion has been declining steadily since 1996, when Congress revamped welfare and abolished the guarantee of cash assistance for the nation's poorest children.

The number of Maryland families that need government help to make ends meet has reached record levels, but funds for the state's safety net are being cut. More than 700,000 Marylanders receive food assistance, the most in state history. A record 70,000 people depend on emergency cash assistance. And demand for the state's child-care subsidy program is such that officials imposed an indefinite freeze on new applicants. Yet state and federal officials are budgeting less money for the safety net in the coming fiscal year.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved a comprehensive welfare bill yesterday that would end the long-standing federal guarantee of cash assistance for the nation's poorest children and give states vast new power to run their own welfare and work programs with lump sums of federal money.The vote was 74-24, as 23 Democratic senators joined 51 Republicans in support of the bill, which calls for the most sweeping changes in welfare policy since the New Deal. Maryland's Democratic senators, Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, opposed the bill.

Costs for Carroll County families have risen more quickly than wages over the past decade, making self-sufficiency harder to achieve, according to a new study. A Carroll County family of one adult, a preschooler and a school-aged child needs $58,463 a year to cover basic costs, including housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and taxes, the study, titled the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Maryland, found. The standard was created by researchers at the University of Washington School of Social Work, in cooperation with the Maryland Community Action Partnership.

A family of three - one adult, one preschooler and one school-age child - in Anne Arundel County needs an annual income of $67,865 just to meet its basic needs, a new report shows. That income requires a salary of $32.13 an hour when the adult works full time - more than four times the Maryland minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and nearly $5 more than the $27.32-an-hour wage required for the same family in 2007. These rising costs, combined with the effects of the recession, have resulted in a flood of new applications in Anne Arundel County for assistance programs, such as temporary cash assistance, which provides cash to needy families with dependent children, and the food supplement program, formerly known as food stamps - both federal programs administered by the state.

Just five years ago, a Harford County family of one adult, one school-age child and one preschooler needed an annual income of about $54,000 to make ends meet. That family today would need nearly $62,000, a new study shows. That number covers basic costs, including housing, child care, transportation, taxes and miscellaneous costs, according to the Self-Sufficiency Study compiled by researchers at the University of Washington School of Social Work, in cooperation with the Maryland Community Action Partnership.

The number of Maryland families that need government help to make ends meet has reached record levels, but funds for the state's safety net are being cut. More than 700,000 Marylanders receive food assistance, the most in state history. A record 70,000 people depend on emergency cash assistance. And demand for the state's child-care subsidy program is such that officials imposed an indefinite freeze on new applicants. Yet state and federal officials are budgeting less money for the safety net in the coming fiscal year.

A judge allowed the state yesterday to continue its freeze on cash assistance for poor and disabled people, ruling against a request for a restraining order made by advocates for the homeless. Baltimore Circuit Judge Kaye A. Allison's decision means that a class action lawsuit filed Jan. 23 on behalf of a homeless man, Gustav Ketchersid, against Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. will continue, but have no immediate impact on the cuts. "With the money, I could have rented a room to put a roof over my head.

While traditional cash payments to welfare recipients continue to drop in Maryland overall - especially in Baltimore - prosperous Howard and Harford counties are seeing sharply higher numbers of people going on assistance rolls. Disturbed by the trend - a 94 percent increase in Howard and a 59 percent jump in Harford over two years and lesser increases in other suburbs - state Department of Human Resources officials commissioned a study by the Regional Economic Studies Institute at Towson University, which blamed recession-related unemployment intensified by the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Maryland cuts welfare benefits more quickly than most other states, giving less of a chance to those making the transition from welfare to work, according to a new study that places the state near the bottom in the nation.State officials take pride in having reduced their caseload sharply since welfare reform went into effect, from 227,887 recipients in January 1995 to 96,055 last month.Many other states, including Alabama and New Jersey, allow welfare recipients to keep part or all of their government aid for a while after they start work.

Just five years ago, a Harford County family of one adult, one school-age child and one preschooler needed an annual income of about $54,000 to make ends meet. That family today would need nearly $62,000, a new study shows. That number covers basic costs, including housing, child care, transportation, taxes and miscellaneous costs, according to the Self-Sufficiency Study compiled by researchers at the University of Washington School of Social Work, in cooperation with the Maryland Community Action Partnership.

A family of three - one adult, one preschooler and one school-age child - in Anne Arundel County needs an annual income of $67,865 just to meet its basic needs, a new report shows. That income requires a salary of $32.13 an hour when the adult works full time - more than four times the Maryland minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and nearly $5 more than the $27.32-an-hour wage required for the same family in 2007. These rising costs, combined with the effects of the recession, have resulted in a flood of new applications in Anne Arundel County for assistance programs, such as temporary cash assistance, which provides cash to needy families with dependent children, and the food supplement program, formerly known as food stamps - both federal programs administered by the state.

Andrea Leepa owns her mobile home in the Deep Run Mobile Home Park in Elkridge, but not the land it sits on. She is urging legislators to support a bill that would require mobile home park owners to notify residents and provide relocation assistance if the owner sells the land for another use. "Even though our home is called mobile, it really isn't," Leepa told lawmakers in Annapolis recently. Moving a manufactured home can cost between $10,000 and $15,000, she said, and many parks only accept homes that are fewer than 10 years old. Leepa's is 17 years old. While she's under no threat of moving right now, she worries about it. Current law says park owners must provide a relocation plan, but it is vague about what the plan must contain, said Jacob Ouslander, an attorney for the Southern Maryland office of the Legal Aid Bureau.

In eight days, 4,492 passengers arrived on 19 planes. They received 5,784 meals and 3,822 "health and comfort kits," with such items as soap and shaving cream. In addition, 2,995 of them received travel information as they continued on to destinations around the country. Yesterday, state officials declared their mission to help American evacuees from Lebanon accomplished as they closed the repatriation center at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. The final flight of evacuees, carrying 197 passengers, arrived at 10:05 a.m. yesterday.

NEW YORK - An astonishing $3 billion was raised to help the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and nearly all that money has been spent, the bulk of it handed over in cash grants, some without regard to financial need. The practice of giving victims direct cash assistance was in part driven by pressure from donors and scrutiny from the news media over whether charities were spending the money quickly enough and putting it in the hands of grieving families, unemployed workers and people left homeless by destruction, ash and debris.

Homeschool group information session to be held Monday The Columbia Homeschool Community will hold a kickoff and information session from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday at the central library, 10375 Little Patuxent Parkway. The meeting is open to everyone. Admission is free. Information: 410-740-6688, or ColumbiaHomeschool.org. School-meal assistance guidelines revised The Howard County public school system has announced its revised income-eligibility guidelines for free and reduced-price school meals.

A suspended state program that provides temporary cash assistance to disabled adults could be restored if lawmakers approve a $13 million supplement the governor proposed yesterday for the 2005 budget. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. earmarked $2.95 million of the supplemental budget to be distributed in small monthly payments through the Transitional Emergency Medical and Housing Assistance Program through July. The program - which gives $185 stipends to single, unemployable, disabled Marylanders who are ineligible for any other cash assistance programs - has been forced to turn away about 1,000 new applicants since January.

Costs for Carroll County families have risen more quickly than wages over the past decade, making self-sufficiency harder to achieve, according to a new study. A Carroll County family of one adult, a preschooler and a school-aged child needs $58,463 a year to cover basic costs, including housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and taxes, the study, titled the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Maryland, found. The standard was created by researchers at the University of Washington School of Social Work, in cooperation with the Maryland Community Action Partnership.

A suspended state program that provides temporary cash assistance to disabled adults could be restored if lawmakers approve a $13 million supplement the governor proposed yesterday for the 2005 budget. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. earmarked $2.95 million of the supplemental budget to be distributed in small monthly payments through the Transitional Emergency Medical and Housing Assistance Program through July. The program - which gives $185 stipends to single, unemployable, disabled Marylanders who are ineligible for any other cash assistance programs - has been forced to turn away about 1,000 new applicants since January.

About 300 homeless people, advocates and students gathered outside the State House in Annapolis yesterday to sing, shout, pray, wave signs and plead for the state to end a freeze on cash assistance for low-income, disabled people. Damon Heard, 33, a caseworker at the nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless, leaned toward a microphone in the center of the crowd and rhymed a tune he wrote for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. as a friend jammed beside him on a guitar. Around Heard, beneath a statue of Thurgood Marshall, scores of protesters waved neon yellow and orange signs reading: "People over Profit!