For two years she used the family's entire public assistance grant, about $600 a month, to buy crack.

Yet an additional child increases the family's public assistance grant by less than $3 a day.

Last year 35 percent of the student body received financial assistance grants, totaling more than $6 million.

In addition, technical assistance grants are provided to assist with the project development.

Meanwhile, they are reduced to public assistance grants of $352 a month, too little to even cover their rent.

New York has not raised the public assistance grant since 1990, although the cost of living has increased by 25 percent since then.

They also said it would compromise lawyers' obligations to their clients because homeless people's legal problems often involve public assistance grants and other government benefits.

However, the bureau was saved by a veterans' assistance grant, which aimed to maintain and improve transportation options for the island's large military population.

She is diabetic and receives a general assistance grant of about $150 a month to buy medication; she has no health insurance.

In 1995, with a $9.9 million budget, it helped more than 2,700 people around the country with almost $2.3 million in assistance grants.