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Showing Original Post only (View all)Food Stamp Reforms Are Ruining Christmas [View all]
By the time Maria Melo went to the state social services office to apply for food stamps, things had been going badly for months. She'd lost her job as director of nursing at a rehab facility. Then, longstanding problems with anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder shut her body down and she ended up hospitalized for two weeks. Between unemployment checks and her husband's work as a self-employed electrician, they might still have been able to squeak by OK and even get some decent Christmas gifts for the kids. But the unpaid hospital bills made that impossible now.
Food stamps, Melo figured, would reduce the monthly grocery bill, giving her a little breathing room in the family budget. But, sitting in the crowded waiting room at an office of the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance near her home in Lowell, she was more embarrassed than hopeful.
"I was like, I can't believe I'm doing this," she said. "Here I am, a registered nurse, sitting there, just hoping for help."
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http://www.vice.com/read/food-stamp-reforms-are-ruining-christmas-1218