MPD: Unruly Crowd at "Free Food Voucher" Event

[postulater]

Source: WTMJ radio

Over 2,500 people showed up at the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center on 12th and Vliet after believing they were handing out free food vouchers there.

In reality, the event was set up to allow flood victims to apply for disaster Foodshare Benefits. The line began forming at 5am. Two hours later people began to get upset. There are reports that some in the crowd were attempting to take the doors off the center's hinges.

In a statement, Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, Jr. said the food crisis in Milwaukee is worse than many have realized.

"We expect long lines for free food in Third World countries," Hines said in his statement. "We don't expect a line of 2,500 people waiting for food vouchers at the Marcia P. Coggs Center."



Read more: http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/20653544.html

---

We have our own third world country right here.

[wurzel]

1. Under Bush this is a Third World Country

Where have these guys been for the last seven years?

[barbtries]

5. it's true

he's thrown us back decades. the bastard.

maybe this event will wake some people up to the hardships so many are facing with hardly any assistance to turn to.

[sentelle]

16. "Third World" is overused.

Generally it refers to a nation that is developing in terms of industrialisation and goods. It is not the same as 'poor' nations, and is, in fact demeaning to much of the developing world.

And FWIW, much of Africa, where you see the poverty and famine is 'fourth world' meaning industrially undeveloped, and poor.

Unlike the US, much of the third world has Universal health care, for example.

Ironically, those terms are often used in the 'first world' but not at all in the developing world, where its seen as somewhat racist.

[pattmarty]

2. Shades of the fucking Depression.

[Dr.Phool]

3. When are they going to break out the free cheese we got under St. Ronnie?

[mntleo2]

4. Wisconsin has some of the most draconian

...poverty laws since "Welfare DEformed. Therefore all they have done is increase the misery of low income workers and single parents and pushed them into desperate straits. I have had contact with social justice people there. Most upper income people are not aware of the horrors happening right under their nose. There was a group of social justice and low income workers who kept volunteer watch on the no-contract faith-based dollars there, where their YWCA was supposed to be meting out daycare money. Women who went in there to apply were treated like criminals simply because they needed daycare assistance in order to go to their low paying forced labor jobs. Then the volunteers discovered that, out of more than a million dollars given to this organization, they spent over $80,000 of it on themselves for a freaking big party so they could pat themselves on the back as to how wonderful they were. The YWCA ended up giving back the rest of the money to the State in embarrassment ~ only 1/4 million dollars was left of almost 1.5 million ~ and less than 30% of it actually gets to needy families by the state's own estimates. So much for doing the work for Jeeezus. Of course who in the MSM cared if a bunch of entitled "christian" people took poor family's assistance money for themselves, eh? Not a word of this anywhere except through the social justice network.

So no wonder there was unrest ~ I have been waiting for the "bubble" to burst and am not surprised at the anger there.

Cat In Seattle

[mopinko]

6. i have a relative that was a social worker in wi

w2 basically ordered them to throw people off the roles, no matter what. after that was pretty much accomplished, and they had worked themselves out of work, she retired. by that time, she had just gotten sick of what she was told to do, and the disgusting attitudes that it instilled in her coworkers.

[closeupready]

9. Wasn't Tommy Thompson governor of Wisconsin before

all this started unfolding? Didn't he oversee "welfare to work"? I mean, how much are those policies to blame for this state of affairs? (and by the way, I don't think this kind of thing is going to be limited to Wisconsin - I think it will be spreading to many other states.)

[reggie the dog]

10. Sad to say but

this must be why it is so easy to get cheap weed in WI. We often went to Racine from Chicago to pay 700 for a pound which would have been double in Chicago. Like the Kenosha outlet mall they put down prices to attract clients.

[eridani]

14. Now I'm nostalgic. I remember $100 a pound in the 70s

Divide into 16 lots, sell 10 for $15/lid, and you have close to a year's supply for two not very frequent smokers left plus $50.

[TechBear_Seattle]

11. And who was responsible for welfare deform?

It wasn't Bush.

[ThePowerofWill]

12. Thats right, it was the best repuke president we ever had.

Bill Clinton! Welfare reform was just one of the injustices this repuke in blue foisted upon us. In fact many of the policies set forth during his term have lead to what we have now.

[mntleo2]

13. Yep Clinton signed it into law tho ...

...the law was written by a Heritage Foundation man named Robert Rector (I think that is how his name is spelled) and passed by a Republican majority in both houses. This man became outraged after meeting some women living in the ghetto in DC who had moved from W Virginia and were attending college while on welfare (over 70% of women on welfare used it in order to get a degree). He ignored the fact that these women, most who were raised on welfare themselves, had fled their communities because there were no opportunities for them there because of the rampant racism and sexism that denied them employment with a livable wage or access to an education. Not only that but the public was becoming aware of the thousands of times more corporate welfare being doled out to corporations and wealthy individuals paid by our tax dollars. The Right and Heritage Foundation especially who knew the true numbers, needed a scapegoat and as usual who better than defenseless single moms who are trying to raiser their kids who had nobody powerful to come to their aid? Thus Welfare DEformed was born and Clinton went along with it ~ promising (pretending to social justice leaders) he would soften it but never did anything of the sort and left the bill to stand just as Rector wrote it.

Clinton gladly signed that bill. This was primarily why I was against Hillary Clinton, because a few years ago she went around the country with Joe LIEberman touting how "successful" Welfare DEformed supposedly is ~ when in reality it is plunging millions of families into lifelong poverty, denying access to even getting a GED, not allocating enough for childcare. Following the tradition of punishment for the poor, our own "progressive" governor just recently became more punitive by sanctioning families who had gone over the time limit ~ even though our state acknowledges 99% of these families had serious barriers. Sanctioning means that even the children are denied any benefits or assistance. Barriers are because the parent and/or the child are disabled, families are rural and live in depressed economies or there is no work, there is no public transportation, or there is no reliable childcare .

Since you live in Seattle as I do, perhaps you are familiar with the group People On Welfare For Economic Rights (POWER). I am affiliated with that group and we are in contact with people all over the country who are low income or on welfare and we are trying to raise people's conscience as to what is truly happening. As a former IT person who is a "dot goner" I suspect by your name, you perhaps know what that alone did to families here who have never recovered. I just attended a Women's Funding Alliance function who fund us and they are under the United Way umbrella. It is a good way to give your United Way dollars if your workplace donates and you so choose, as they fund us as well as the Hate Free Zone (a support org. for immigrants) and other small non-profits.

Cat In Seattle

[girl gone mad]

7. Parts of detroit..

have resembled a third world country for years now.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=T6WKMNmFsxM&feature=user

[raccoon]

15. Yes, they do. THanks for the link. nt

[Hydra]

8. This is a third-world country!

And luckily, more and more people are seeing it...unfortunately, they are doing it by becoming part of the dirt poor class.