No, SU isn’t really doing much in the way of holiday shopping. Some staff are putting together holiday meal packages like they did for Thanksgiving for some of our consumers who live on their own and don’t go to family on the day. A number of SU’s friends in the community are doing some present shopping to brighten Christmas for our residents. What we do have in common with a lot of unfortunate holiday shoppers is debt. Our debt is for the basics…salaries, utilities, insurance, etc. The state is way behind on payments, to the point that we’ve now borrowed $108,000 to keep paying our staff and consumers.
Four years ago, that would be the headline for this post, but the fact of the matter is that has now become par for the course. What we do now, and what we’ve done before, is keep borrowing until we can’t borrow any more, then send proof that we’re broke and out of credit to the state, and then we’ll be eligible to be approved for expedited payments for six months. Though we’ve grown familiar with the process, it’s still a scary thing to have to walk that close to the abyss. Still, we understand that the state has limited resources and there aren’t always any good choices out there.