(Spirit Lake)– Charities say donations for hurricane victims are siphoning food and clothing they were hoping to receive to help Iowa’s homeless.
Laurie Ruuf of Upper Des Moines Opportunity’s Spirit Lake office says they’re concerned that will result in reduced donations to local organizations such as UDMO. Ruuf says she’s very concerned over those living on fixed incomes. She says many of those folks have already visited her office expressing concern over how much their budgets have gone up. She says many fail to realize just how many local residents are in that predicament–trying to live on 500 or six hundred dollars a month. Ruuf says it could be a long, cold winter for many of those folks.
Ruuf says the number of inquiries her office has been getting for heating and other forms of assistance is already up considerably from previous years.
Ruuf says they’ll start accepting applications from seniors and disabled members of low-income families for fuel assistance beginning October 1st. For the general low-income public the application process doesn’t start until after November 1st.
