the rich have to get welfare.
Seattle couple accused of stealing $100,000 from welfare funds
A wealthy Seattle couple has been accused in a lawsuit of cheating the government out of more than $100,000 in welfare funds.

Federal prosecutors filed suit against Lyudmila Shimonova and David Silverstein in civil court Friday, and federal agents raided their $1.2 million lakefront home.

In the lawsuit, federal authorities said the couple received $135,000 in federal housing assistance, plus money from a federal program for destitute disabled people and a state program meant to feed poor families.

“The investigation has developed substantial evidence that the subjects defrauded these programs by misrepresenting and concealing material information,” said a Department Housing and Urban Development special agent

while this is not uncommon and there's plenty of cases of people well off cheating the system. what took be back was a tv broadcast of this and the person being interviewed stated this is a rarity. as if this seldom happens.
it's these people and those like them that steal from programs for those in need and it makes those in need of the program look bad and then we hear a political party spouting get rid of it and how these people on it need to get a job.
100K+ that could've helped at least 2 to 4 families that really need it. the fact it took them so long is a result of cuts in the program, less people to do the investigative work.

Wow thats impressive. When Special Diet subsidy was under fire here in Toronto, one report said a family was bringing 30K a year. Next thing ya know the average citizen was thinking that all welfare reciepiants get that much. I had to diffuse these conversations on a regular basis. The average income is about 8K/yr for a single person and about 70% of that goes just to rent & utilities in this city.

I don't see how anyone can live on that. if that much goes to rent and utils, they aren't eating right and they damn sure can't save or afford health or car insurance. this probably accounts for obesity here. feed'em junk to fill them up.

I look ow things were when I was growing up and now and I'm just disgusted. I remember people helping one another, sticking up for the weak or downtrodden. ow it's every man for himself fuck those who don't have, let them starve and die.
all this I hear from the right wing, the supposedly christians.

tax breaks for the rich = good
tax breaks for the middle class and poor = bad.
and yet people still vote for them. I don't get it.

Because they are being misled into thinking that republicans will make everyone rich while Democrats will make them poor. That's the idea being sold by right-wingers and people eat it up. They just keep telling everyone that we have to support giving away money to big business so that they won't leave. But they do whatever they want and they don't create new jobs anyway.

It is the same with the Occupy movement. The media broadcast nothing but the negative parts instead of the positive messages because they have their own right-wing agendas. And the average person eats it up and bitches about the protestors. Some people even admit that they support the 1% getting more perks because they want to be 1% someday. How stupid is that? By those odds, it is 99% unlikely that they will ever be rich and yet they still buy into the dream instead of fighting for a better life now.

Got to love Washington. Pretty much EVERY family in the 25-35 age range I know who has children are on food stamps, but that's just because the economy in this area is awful.

Funny thing about the whole Dems/Reps thing is, who care if you're "poor" if all your basic needs are provided for?

2-4 families?

I'm on a form of welfare for people with "lesser disabilities"
mashed knee and hernia

after my $425 rent is paid I have about $236 per month to live on.

that 100+K could feed quite a few people.

What's really been burning me are the poverty pimps
these "service providers" I get sent to
where they get 5 bucks everytime I go there to use the phone or some old crap computer, or whatever their bullshit "service" is.

give me a cheap phone and some minutes instead of them 5 bucks a hundred times a year.

Or another place.
I calculated they were paid $5000+ in one year from the ministry for offering me "services". The total value of which was about $500.
And here almost all those companies are run in some way by organized crime.

I survived on about $4200 that year and the years before and after.

Makes sense, its not stealing because they're ingrates anyway, those poor people. They must have done something to deserve it.

there is a program where the govt. gives you a cell phone with x amount of minutes per month. you have to qualify.
as for povery pimps, I agree, there's people out there who take advantage of those with a lesser income.

people are getting rich off the poor and those struggling. greed and the me,myself,and I mentallity is the cause.

I just get disgusted seeing and hearing these stories how people are losing everything due to greed.

I'm sick of bullshit charities too. I was asked to help out the CKNW Radio Orphans fund raising by my Union this year by standing on the streets of Vancouver hassling people for donations. We've donated time every year to this charity thinking that we were doing some good for a good cause.

Then it was revealed that CKNW Media is owned by the billionaire Shaw family, and that when the charity was started, CKNW used to absorb the administrative costs. That's when it was a real charity. However, CKNW posted earnings of $800 millions dollars last year and hasn't been absorbing those costs for many years.

Canadian Tax information shows that last year, the Orphans Fund raised $1,500,000 but $1,200,000 of those monies were paid out in salaries and gifts to corporate donors. So, of $1.5 million, $300 K actually went into helping orphans.

That's when I said hell NO, and our membership decided to get behind manning Christmas kettles for the Salvation Army instead. We're not freezing our asses off harrassing shoppers to pay CEO salaries.

Meph more people should give a shit like you do. Good Man

The RCMP are more interested in busting potheads and kids drinking than actually nailing fraud.

FYI

The salvation army isn't much better

Its owned in Canada by H.A. now, and is used as a tax shelter with an offshore presence in Bermuda. You know, that tax haven banking region.

I find it disturbing that the people selling the smack run the religious "recovery" centres.

they get millions in gov't contracts too

I spent 3 years living outside in a park
all I got from the sally ann was some chili once in a while

so where there millions go I don't know

probably bermuda
praise the lord for his largesse

same crew operates the food bank...