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	Was There Welfare Fraud in Eldorado? By Corrie MacLaggan Austin Statesman-American April 28, 2008 http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2008/04/28/was_there_welfare_fraud_in_eld.html Readers have been asking whether residents of the polygamous ranch in Eldorado run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have relied heavily on public assistance. They ask because FLDS communities in other states have been accused of welfare fraud. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2001 that as many as half the residents of the FLDS center of Hildale, Utah, were on public assistance. The fraud comes in when plural wives claim not to know where their husbands are, the article says. But it doesn't appear that the residents of the YFZ Ranch in West Texas relied heavily on public assistance. Though statistics aren't available for individual families or addresses for privacy reasons, Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, gave me these numbers for Schleicher County, which includes Eldorado. Keep in mind these numbers are for the entire 2,800-resident county and that easily more than 500 people lived at the ranch before the state pulled out the children during the recent raid. Schleicher County TANF cases (cash assistance program): There are no current cases. Food stamps: 122 recipients in September 2005; 203 recipients in April 2008 Children's Health Insurance Program: 111 children in January 2003; 63 children in April 2008 Medicaid: 262 people (including 160 children) in September 2006; 283 people (including 182 children) in April 2008 These numbers leave a lot of questions and certainly don't give us a definitive explanation of how common it was at the ranch to be on public assistance. But clearly, everyone there wasn't enrolled in Medicaid. Mary Batchelor, director of Principle Voices, a Utah-based group that advocates for fundamentalist Mormons, said welfare fraud is one of many stereotypes unfairly linked to polygamy. "The fact that polygamy itself is associated with abuse, underage marriage, welfare fraud is just not true," she said. "It may well be true of some members who practice polygamy — just like any part of our society. But it's not true of everyone. It's not true of the majority." For more on the raid — and what people are saying about the state's decision to remove all the children from the ranch — see our Sunday story
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