Stop the Attacks on the Poor! -- December 10

MWRO Calls its Members and the Metropolitan Community!

A Day of Deliberations and Decisions

Stop the Attack on the Poor!

Saturday, December 10

Central United Methodist Church • 23 E. Adams • Detroit

Morning • 10 am - 12 pm

Stop the Cuts!

Lawyers, judges, social workers, paralegals, and activists will gather to devise strategies that attack this form of genocide — the welfare cuts to mothers and children.

(See article below For Whom The Bell Tolls.)

Lunch • 12 pm — 1 pm for morning and afternoon sessions

Afternoon • 1 pm - 4 pm

Put Homeless Children and Veterans into Homes!

Community leaders and activists will gather to create a committee to put people back in their homes. (See article below Put Homeless Children and Veterans into Homes.)

For more information: 

Please call the MWRO Office at 313-964-0618.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

 

By Maureen Taylor

Chairperson, Michigan WRO

For months, MI Welfare Rights has warned the residents of MI that the Governor was prepared to start programs that targeted children. No one ever imagined the horror that is about to be placed around the necks of low income children.

Effective immediately, mothers and children who depend on meager welfare benefits to pay for rent, mortgages and utilities have been cut off with no plan. Mothers with disabled children, disabled mothers, mothers in domestic violence circumstances, all who were supposed to be exempted, have received written notices informing them that their cash assistance cases have ended.

We are facing the most draconian series of events seen in the State, in the County, and most tragically in the City of Detroit. Some 40,000 welfare families living in Wayne County are the first to be killed-off, with some 15,000 of these living in Detroit.

The criteria for eligibility, is that families must have at least one minor child. With 40,000 families, we are looking at some 40,000, or 80,000, or 120,000 children who are being harmed.

Information you need to know.

1) If you receive a cut-off notice, you must file an in-person hearing within ten days of the date on that notice to maintain your benefits. You have a right to challenge a cut-off of benefits if the following has happened to you and your family:

You have a disabled child;

You are disabled;

You have been in a domestic violence situation;

File an IN-PERSON HEARING as soon as possible if you are or have been in any of these situations while receiving cash assistance. If you are outside the ten day date, file knowing that you will not be able to keep your assistance, but you will have your case heard in front of an Administrative Law Judge. FILE!! FILE!! FILE!!

    

Welfare Rights is proposing legal action to address these budget cuts aimed at making poor children homeless. To suggest that the State is “broke” and that Michigan can save $77 million each year by cutting off funds to the poorest and the littlest signifies that one has crossed over to the “dark side” already.

This “CALL TO ACTION” is to alert and to gather lawyers, judges, Social Workers, paralegals, and activists to devise strategies that attack this pattern of genocide.

This “CALL TO ACTION” is for all who read this article including welfare recipients who have received 48 month notices that claim their benefits have maxed out.

Call MWRO at (313) 964-0618 to be included in the first session, being planned before the end of December.

REMEMBER!! We march every Thursday, noon to 1pm, at the State Building – 3044 W. Grand Blvd – against these cuts.

We will meet at the MI Welfare Rights office, 23 E. Adams, near Comerica Park, Saturday, December 10, at 10 am. Call in your rsvp!

 

Put Homeless Children and Veterans into Homes!

The time has come to put homeless children and veterans into homes. Since the economic crisis began, people around Detroit have been talking about putting people into empty homes.

Now is the time to move from talking about it to seriously planning it and executing the plan.

No one organization or one community has been able to do this work to date.

In our vision, the committee is initially composed of community leaders, organizations and/or their representatives who can:

1. Reach out to bring families cut from welfare and homeless veterans into the struggle.

2. Marshal all the resources necessary to successfully put people in and keep them in homes.

These include legal teams to fight for justice in the courts, committees to supply food, furniture, clothing; education and training in the political struggle involved; skilled 

trades to repair homes and maintain utilities and many others.

 3. Strategize and develop the best plans to successfully put people in to homes.

At the meeting, many aspects of this struggle may be debated or explored but the goal is expressly clear — the creation of a community-supported committee to plan such actions. 

(From page 6 of the Winter 2011 MWRO Newsletter)

Low-income people are the majority of the 99%

A new, more accurate measure of poverty shows the low income group is 47% of the society or nearly 150 million people.
Also, under this new measure, the rate of poverty for people older than 65 nearly doubles, from 9% to 16%.
Poverty means an income of less than $24,000 a year or four people ($11,000 for an individual). 49 million people, 16%, are poor.
Low income is defined as between $24,000 - $48,000 (100- 200% of poverty) for a family of four. This group is now 98 million people, or 32%.
Adding the poor and low-income groups together -- all families with incomes below $48,000 -- is 48% of the country.
The low-income section of the population is increasing not because people are being lifted up out of poverty because more and more people are falling in to poverty.
Finally, the well-off group falls from 35% of the society to 17%; families of four with incomes of $97,000 or greater. The drop is due to including medical costs and taxes which erode what appeared to be gains in income.
The new measurement shows a sharper and clearer picture of the United States -- much poorer, with a much smaller middle class.
All to benefit the 1% and the 0.1%. They are hoarding the wealth of the society at the expense of everyone else.
For Michigan Welfare Rights these numbers are closer to the truth. They show that we, and other welfare rights unions across the country have 150 million potential members and allies.

We are the majority of the 99%! (See NY Times, Sunday November 20 page 10)

Prof. Cornell West to Occupiers: We have deep love for poor people

Dr. West speaks at Occupy Seattle, November 17, 2011:

"When you've done all the things you set out to do -- raising your voice...raising our voices, our individual voices, our collective voices -- for what? Out of the deep love we have for poor people, working people, people of color, our gay brothers and lesbian sisters -- all of those who have been dehumanized, pushed to the margins and we say, 'Yes, it is a love movement!...In the last 30 years this class war against poor and working people -- pushing folk against the wall as if somehow they're just marginalized utilities in a profit margin analysis. No, those are human beings there -- losing their houses, jobs unavailable, wages stagnating with profits at the top, breaking records year in and year out. And when they get in trouble, even when they hard on folk and welfare on below, they get the corporate welfare from the top. Oh, yes! I call it corporate socialism. That's what it is: tax payers' money supporting the oligarchs when they get into trouble -- talking to me about personal responsibility...nobody going to jail given the criminal activity that's been going on on Wall Street for the past 15 years. Not one person's gone to jail!"

Hear the rest of his speech. Preach on, Professor!

Statistics on the 99% vs 1%

Want more evidence that the 99% are being screwed by the 1%? Check out these U.S. figures:

• 400 billionaires
• The richest 1% owns 1/3 of the wealth
• Luxury car sales are up 8.7%, jewelry 20%
• 1 in 6 people have no health insurance
• 1 in 7 people live below the poverty line
• 1 in 7 people are food insecure
• 1 in 17 earns below the federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr)

 In fact, it looks like it's really the 99.99% vs .01%! 

Update on judge's ruling -- Cuts beginning now!

Soon after a local judge ruled that welfare cuts had to be rescinded, an appeals court overturned his ruling last Friday, November 4 and cuts affecting tens of thousands of Michigan residents began Saturday.

Keep Up the Pressure! Resurrection March this Thursday!

Resurrection March
When: Thursday, November 10, 12 noon
Where:Detroit, State of Michigan Building, 3044 W. Grand Blvd (between Second and Cass)

Once again a judge has forced the state of Michigan to continue welfare payments; this is two months in a row and each time it has meant millions of dollars for low-income families.
Our Resurrection Marches have been part of the key reason for these rulings and victories — the struggle in the streets for justice for welfare recipients.
But these are very temporary victories. We need to keep up the pressure! Reach out and bring someone new to the Resurrection March.
The first 14,000 families who receive just over $5,000 per year are on still on the chopping block. Does it cost too much money to keep welfare families alive? We must RECLAIM the spirit of humanity in Michigan, especially now when decency and democracy both are under attack.

Join us for Resurrection March
When:Thursday, November 10, 12 noon
Where:Detroit, State of Michigan Building, 3044 W. Grand Blvd (between Second and Cass)