Word: bannon
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Three cheers for Sacramento County, Calif., and its Bannon Street shelter project that helps the poor [March 14]. Finally somebody has come up with an idea that takes some of the burden off the county welfare system...
...sense of entitlement expressed by Arthur Robbins, who refuses to live at the Bannon Street residence, is appalling. If Robbins wants to live in a place where he can "watch TV all night," he has only...
...increased 55% during the past two years," says Dennis Hart, director of the county's social welfare department. "We had to find a way to do some screening of the people we were getting." The throwback has already spurred a lawsuit and a blast of criticism from Bannon Street residents, lawyers and sociologists. Says Harry Specht, dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley: "It's medieval. We gave up the notion of the poorhouse before the Depression." Warehousing the poor, he says, "stigmatizes them, creating a subculture of people...
...achieving the desired effect: trimming the county's dole roll. In November 1981 the county had 805 applicants for welfare. In November 1982, shortly after the new policy started, 317 people applied. "A lot of people refuse to go through the application process when they see that Bannon Street is the option," says Hart...
...those who refused was Arthur Robbins, a migrant farm laborer who applied for general assistance last fall. After being told to go to Bannon Street instead, he filed a lawsuit with the aid of two legal-services groups, charging that the new policy discriminates against single citizens and violates the constitutional rights to privacy and freedom to travel. "It's a jail," says Robbins. "You can't live like you want to live. You can't watch TV all night if you want...