State Restrictions on Public Assistance for Drug Felons

States rethink restrictions on food stamps, welfare for drug felons, By Rebecca Beitsch, July 30, 2015, Stateline: “Johnny Waller Jr.’s 1998 felony drug conviction has haunted him since the day he left a Nebraska prison in 2001. Waller, now 38, applied for 175 jobs without getting one. He had trouble getting a federal loan for college because of his drug conviction, so he started his own janitorial business, in Kansas City, Missouri. And when his toddler son, Jordyn, was diagnosed with stomach cancer and needed full-time care, Waller’s record disqualified him from receiving food stamps. ‘I really needed assistance there,’ Waller said of the time in 2007 he had to give up his job to care for Jordyn. But he couldn’t get it, he said, because of a conviction ‘when I was 18 years old that didn’t have anything to do with my son…'”