“It just doesn’t happen that way,” Benitez said. Jose Benitez, the executive director of addiction services provider Prevention Point Philadelphia, said that recovery houses usually don’t officially serve as the payee for SNAP benefits. However, some in the addiction-treatment community are skeptical that Cruz’s bill would be effective. If the monitors find otherwise, he said, the benefits will be terminated. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor “If you’re going to be the payee, you’re going to be visited by the Department of Welfare every three months, to make sure that you have the person, that the person’s getting treatment, that the person is not being abused,” Cruz said. The bill would require the government to monitor recovery house operators who act as the “payees” of these benefits, receiving them on behalf of residents, Cruz said. Many of the Air Bridge victims end up homeless on the streets in Cruz’s district after a stint in the recovery houses. Angel Cruz, D-Philadelphia, has introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would try to stop the recovery houses that take part in this scheme from defrauding the public benefits system. Those who run the corrupt houses cash in on the residents’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, sometimes collecting them even after the beneficiary has left the home. Once they get here, the Air Bridge travelers find themselves in illegitimate recovery houses that profit from their addictions. A Pennsylvania lawmaker has a new proposal to stem the flow of heroin addicts from Puerto Rico to bogus treatment programs in Philadelphia - a system of exploitation known as “Air Bridge.”
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