Denied - lacking sufficient information

Business is slow and I am not exactly brimming with cheer. BigD is on a radical chemo program for his lymphoma, eight hour picc (peripherally inserted central catheters) line infusions and I have been really worried about him. Knocked him on his ass this week. My own medical issues pale next to what he is going through but I have a few nagging irritations that aren't healing. One of the major Republican candidates doesn't know how many justices are on the Supreme Court (nine) or their individual names. The whole country is running scared right now. The world is in a serious heap of shit and just doesn't look like it's getting any better anytime soon.

With all the negativity and just when I thought things couldn't get any darker I hear about this. This is the worst story I have heard in a long time.  A woman who was denied food stamps in Texas to feed her ten year old son and twelve year old daughter shoots her kids and kills herself. She enters the welfare office in Laredo, a seven hour standoff ensues and she kills herself and shoots her kids, leaving her children in critical condition. Rachel Grimmer, 38, had moved from Zanesville, Ohio last summer. She applied for help in July and was continually turned down. The Welfare Office said that her application "lacked sufficient information" but they could not say which information was lacking. The family was hurting and living in a run down trailer park. Grimmer was finally told she would not qualify for "emergency benefits," in which documentation requirements are postponed, because she said she received child support that exceeded her expenses for rent and utilities.

Grimmer entered the room and pulled out a gun. She finally let the supervisor leave the room at 7:45p.m. and the despondent woman killed herself at 11:35 p.m.. Her daughter's final words before dying were on Facebook, "may die 2day." Her brother died the next day.

The Texas Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been long fraught with problems. The welfare form for food stamps runs 18 pages, in addition it is required that the applicant provide documents showing their proof of employment and residency. The program has a huge backlog of applications and morale and staffing are reportedly very low. Over 40,000 residents have been forced to wait over 30 days for food stamp assistance. Texas has added approximately four million people in the last ten years. Their vigorous execution schedule hasn't put a dent in the population.

I feel for this woman and I feel for her children. They all died too young, seemingly death by acute bureaucracy and inaction. She couldn't feed her children and she couldn't watch them starve. People that aren't lucky enough to win can pay a big price these days.

Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she didn’t turn in enough information, Texas Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman said.
Goodman said it wasn’t immediately clear what information the mother was missing.
"We were still waiting, and if we had that, I don’t know if she would still qualify or not," Goodman said. Goodman didn’t know whether Grimmer had a job, or whether her children were covered under Medicaid or the state children’s health insurance program. The family had no history with the Texas Department of Child Protective Services.

I am reading about more and more of these murder suicides. Guy got shot in a death by cop suicide next to his grave the other day. People are at the end of their rope. When it happens to beautiful little children, it is such a tragedy.