Without Electricity, New Yorkers on Food Stamps Can’t Pay for Food

[PoliticAverse]

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/without_electricity_new_yorkers_on_food_stamps_cant_pay_for_food.html

( Full story available as .mp3 here: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/news/news20121101_pubhousing_mcc_feature.mp3 )

It’s been more than three days since power went out in many parts of New York City, including the Lower East Side where multi-story public housing complexes like the La Guardia Houses don’t have electricity, heat or water.

Many of the residents are also without food.

Many of the low-income residents receive cash and supplemental nutritional assistance from the state electronically through what the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance calls Electronic Benefit Cards (EBT.)

Recipients buying eligible foods are suppose to swipe their EBT cards like any other credit card for their purchases but since Hurricane Sandy hit, most Lower East Side stores don’t have electricity to run credit card transactions and are only accepting cash. Leaving many people on EBT with empty wallets, empty refrigerators and no access to food.

[OKNancy]

1. Lower east side powered up about two hours ago

[Cha]

3. Oh, Good to Know...thanks OKNancy!

[Cha]

2. That's Awful! What can be done? Surely, there's

a way to solve that problem? This probably won't be the last time this happens.

Poor things..please get food to them.

[Dubster]

4. Spam deleted by gkhouston (MIR Team)

[nichomachus]

5. Not just people on food stamps

Very few people have enough cash on hand to survive things like this. After friends went through this a few years ago, we keep enough cash in the house to buy basics for a week or so. I know not everyone can do this, but if you can, you should.

[virgogal]

6. They should have stocked up. I'm alone and went out the Friday

before the storm and bought enough non-perishables to last a week.Not a well balanced diet,but it would suffice.

We had plenty of warning.

[Stardust]

10. Stock up at the end of the month? Seriously??? Bully for you, but many folks have nothing left by

then. Think before you judge.

[virgogal]

11. Hey,I'm on Social Security. I'm not exactly rolling in dough. I stretch

my spending out so that I make sure I have money at the end of the month.

I'm poor,but not stupid.

[HooptieWagon]

7. Well, credit and debit cards don't work either.

And ATMs and gas station pumps don't work. There may not be municipal water, cell service may be out, roads may be impassable, stores and banks closed. That is why its declared a disaster area. That is why people are instructed to prepare for several days of self-sufficiency. If you are incapable of taking care of yourself for a few days, there were shelters open before the storm, and free transportation to them.

[mwooldri]

8. No "manual" backup for foodstamps?

I guess there is no mechanism to take food stamps "manually" like can be done with credit cards (just as long as there is a working phoneline). Now I do work for a major credit card company, and my views here aren't that of my employer. But there are occasions (thankfully very rare these days) that there is a major failure in the authorization network... and it isn't the place of business you're running the card at - it's the credit card network. Even in these cases, places of business can still call in for a verbal authorization code. Even if it is a guy like me asking for the card number and dollar amount and reading a preassigned authorization code from a paper sheet I'm filling out at that time. There's always a backup, and some businesses choose to do this, and some choose not to. Battery powered credit card terminals do exist. The mechanical card processing devices still are accepted, along with the carbon copy papers needed to work them.

But then with grocery stores almost always using barcode technology to store the prices of items... what do stores do in this case? Guess? Or grabbing out that sticker gun and pricing the goods the old fashioned way, using the shelf edge as the previous price? I'm assuming the latter.

I'd rather "foodstamps" be turned into something that can be converted to cash anyways.

[Harry_Scrote]

9. Damn!

I didn't even think of that! Oh man! What can I do to help?