Return-Path: <sentto-279987-2477-1001704626-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:18:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 3299 invoked by uid 510); 28 Sep 2001 19:17:20 -0000 Received: from n6.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.56) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 28 Sep 2001 19:17:20 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-2477-1001704626-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.53] by hm.egroups.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2001 19:17:06 -0000 X-Sender: fc@big.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 28 Sep 2001 19:17:06 -0000 Received: (qmail 38001 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2001 19:17:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2001 19:17:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO big.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 28 Sep 2001 19:17:02 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by big.all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id MAA12515 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:17:02 -0700 Message-Id: <200109281917.MAA12515@big.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:17:02 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Destroyed.Computer.Links.Leave.Thousands.of.Poor.People.Without.Welfare.Benefits] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Destroyed Computer Links Leave Thousands of Poor People Without Welfare Benefits By Nina Bernstein, NY Times, 9/28/2001 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/nyregion/28POOR.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/28/nyregion/28POOR.html?todaysheadlines=&pagewanted=print> The terrorist attack that toppled the World Trade Center also destroyed crucial links to the state computers that manage welfare, Medicaid and food stamp cases, leaving thousands of poor people in New York City and nearby counties without normal access to emergency cash, food and health care. "Nothing's normal at this point," said Dennis Nowak, a spokesman for the Suffolk County Department of Social Services, which has scrambled to provide supermarket vouchers to the neediest applicants. Like many public assistance offices in Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens and in Nassau, Westchester and Putnam Counties, most of Suffolk's centers have been unable to provide regular benefits to eligible families seeking help. "Because of the disaster in New York City, our connection to the New York State management system is down," Mr. Nowak said, "and no one can tell us when we'll be up again." Brian Wing, commissioner of the state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said everything possible was being done to make up for the downed computer systems. "We're trying to take all steps we possibly can to make sure that people aren't falling through the cracks," Mr. Wing said. The computer connections ran through a central Verizon communications hub that was destroyed when 7 World Trade Center collapsed, he said. Mr. Wing and Jason Turner, the city's commissioner of human resources, said that in some cases, paper applications were being taken by messengers from crippled centers to others where they could be coded into working computers. Despite delays, no one is being turned away, they said. But individual applicants and lawyers for the poor tell a different story. "I'm really in dire straits," said Wilfred Thomas, 56, who was in line at a soup kitchen on the Upper West Side yesterday. He still has not received the cash allotment and Medicaid he applied for a little over eight weeks ago and was found eligible to receive. "They told me because of the situation with the World Trade, the place was backed up," he said. Antoinette Esnard, who is living in a domestic violence shelter in Harlem, said she had been trying fruitlessly to reactivate the Medicaid card of her 13-year-old son, who is manic-depressive, so she can fill the prescriptions he needs. "I've been everywhere," she said. "Public Assistance, Housing, A.C.S.; all of those computers are down. We've been wiped out." And in Brooklyn yesterday, Leydey Pimentel, a mother of three who won a decision reinstating her public assistance, turned as a last resort to a food pantry, according to Lisa Pearlstein, a senior lawyer with Brooklyn Legal Services. But administrators at the De Kalb center, in Brooklyn, were unable to access the main computer to provide the aid despite the lawyer's numerous phone calls. "She has no money or food at this point," Ms. Pearlstein said. "She can't buy her kids school supplies. She can't buy her kids clothing, and they need it." In Manhattan, too, the main advocacy groups and agencies that serve the poor are scrambling. Overwhelmed in the best of times, they have struggled to make do without the files, telephones and office space they left behind in Lower Manhattan, where most have their headquarters. The Legal Aid Society, to which many poor people turn for help if they run into trouble with public aid bureaucracies, has lost access even to the names and case files of many of its clients. Its main offices, at 90 Church Street, have been off limits as part of a crime scene since Sept. 11, when debris from the collapsing towers rained down on the building. "There are pieces of the plane and body parts that they found on the roof," said Pat Bath, a spokeswoman for Legal Aid. Though the lawyers have been sent to other offices, many to 166 Montague Street in Brooklyn, few clients know how to reach them. The same building on Church Street housed the New York City Housing Authority and a major post office, the one that handled mail for the state's Division of Disability Determinations, which also lost access to its seriously damaged regional offices on 22 Cortlandt Street. The Social Security Administration said that as many as 15,000 pending applications for disability benefits - many under way for years - might have to be "redeveloped" as a result. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Pinpoint the right security solution for your company- Learn how to add 128- bit encryption and to authenticate your web site with VeriSign's FREE guide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/yQix2C/33_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-09-29 21:08:51 PDT