Social Services: Food stamp benefits credited (Oklahoma City)

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

12:56 pm, CST, Oklahoma City

I just checked with one of the families we are in contact with, and her food stamps were credited to her EBT card in the right amount today. She hadn't been to the store yet, I will check with her later to see if it was accepted at the store.

-- Robert Waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

I just returned from a couple of hours of driving around.

On NW 23rd, Buy for Less, a large warehouse grocery store close to one of our major poor and working class neighborhoods, was packed. The parking lot was completely full. The shortest line at a checkout counter had 20 people with full carts. The canned meat department was severely depleted, ditto for canned vegetables and fruits. The store had a full stocking staff working, including what looked like senior management putting cans on the shelves.

The atmosphere in the store wasn't very happy. It took a long time to walk around, even if you weren't pushing a cart. I saw one serious argument that I thought was going to come to blows, but people pulled the antagonists apart (there may have been a racial/ethnic issue aggravating whatever the problem was, which basically had something to do with blocking an aisle).

I decided to get in the line at the barbecue kiosk (one of the perks of living in Oklahoma City is fresh barbecue kiosks). An employee got in line behind me, I let her go ahead of me as she was on a 15 minute break. I asked her, "Any problems with food stamps today?" She said it had been very slow with the EBT cards, the phone lines are apparently jammed today, and around 12 noon today (CST) there was a serious slow-up where none of the cashiers could get through for "several minutes".

People were still buying bottled water and canned goods, but also a lot of fresh meat and veggies.

Buy for Less and Save a Lot on SE 44th and High Street, another very poor neighborhood, had full parking lots (I didn't go in those stores), as did another warehouse grocery on SW 59th. The Homeland stores (which tend to be more expensive than these discount grocers), on the other hand, had nearly empty parking lots.

-- Robert Waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), December 31, 1999.


My previous post was sent at 5:11 PM, CST.

-- Robert Waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), December 31, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ