Disgusted

[pecunium]

I am suffering from the strange sense of abused/ashamed, silly, and angry.

About six weeks ago I shucked foolish pride and applied for food stamps. A about the beginning of Sept. they sent me a letter with an appointment date; today. I collected the various documents to prove that I was, in fact, poor; which was when I saw they had me being interviewed about Medi-Cal. Not only did I not apply for Medi-Cal, I am not eligible (because I am, for the same reaons I was applying for food stamps, completely covered by the VA).

So, at five minutes past eight I called my case worker and she said that wasn't a problem, she'd fix the coding, come in.

So I did. Saw the man at the desk, called her office, told her machine I was there. She came out, about the time my app't was scheduled, and told me they were still working on the food stamps vs. Medi-Cal issue.

About half an hour, and a couple more reassurances, they noticed what I'd not known when I filled out the application. East Palo Alto (where I live) is in San Mateo Cty. I'd applied in Santa Clara. No good. The money comes from the state, but the counties administer it, so my application wasn't valid.

I trundled my (more than a trifle disappointed/frustrated) self to the San Mateo Office, tolerably sure that by the time any benefits were being decided, the GI Bill would have arrived and I'd be collecting enough money that I'd be denied (because this go round has taken something like seven weeks).

But I filled it out, and waited around and got called back (which hadn't happened in Santa Clara; the San Mateo office was much quieter, and less haunted by despair and hopelessness, but I digress).

He's asking me questions (why I'd waited so long, etc.), and it seems I am going to get a fast turnaround grant (they can give you aid in as little as three days...), when I said I was in school.

Oops. Seems going to school, and being unemployed, makes one ineligble. One has to be available for full-time work, and a student is presumptively unable.

The only way around it is to have a job, which pays one a weekly wage equal to 20 hours of the federal minumum wage. The more time I spend at the margins of the system, the more I appreciate the parctical ways in which the poor are forced to stay poor. "Why don't they go to school, and improve themselves?"

Because if they do, they starve.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Jesus, that's insane.

Here through my Network page, FYI.

[pecunium]

Welcome. I confess that this is, primarily, a backup for my Lj, so I don't check the comments as often as I ought.

[pecunium]

Is the icon from a Gaiman piece? I know I've seen it before.

[ookpik]

They starve even if they get food stamps. I have a client who's living on SSDI; in Massachusetts, that doesn't cover much more than her rent. Her food stamp allotment is, IIRC, eighteen dollars a month. Several days a month, she just doesn't eat at all. Damnit.

[ashiegrrrl.livejournal.com]

Because if they do, they starve.

If I went to school full-time and worked only part-time I'd not only starve, but have to file bankruptcy and give up my car which means I couldn't do either.

*hugs*

I completely understand and the system is totally broken.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

How these things are administered varies, but around here, it's possible to get food from the food bank even if one is not eligible for food stamps, since they're different sets of qualifications. Food bank supplies lean heavily to starches, which could allow you to save your cash for vegetables.

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

You have nothing to be ashamed of. I think it's disgraceful that someone who was in the armed forces for so long should not be offered more help.

My friend mirrorshard wrote an lj-entry a little while ago about the process of applying for state disability benefits in the UK, and how self-esteem-shatteringly inefficient and difficult it is. His post is here.

[lorebubeck.livejournal.com]

Pardon the language, but that is fucked up!

[ckd]

You're not the only person on my flist getting dragged through the bureaucratic mess that's put in front of anyone seeking benefits. In their case, "the person" who can give out "that form" wasn't available, so NO FORM FOR YOU!

I'll echo khalinche, also. You have nothing to be ashamed of; the people who set up the hurdles and mazes, on the other hand....

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I know I don't have anything to be ashamed of, not really, but it's hard. There is a pervasive sense that one has failed. One is not a full-person if one isn't making a living.

This time was easier, the real pill to swallow was filling out the first form. This was more abused, and ashamed that I was so crushed at being told I was 1: in the wrong office and 2:, "No Soup for YOU."

If I'd been in the right office the first go round, I might have had dedicated food money for the past two months. It would have been more than I needed, and I could have stocked up on bulk items (rice, beans, flour, some frozen meats), and been able to weather the painful gap in my GI Bill (which is running late, and may be another month to actually start arriving).

So I'm in Catch-22. Give up on school; and defer the GI Bill Stipend, so I can get half that much and be a able to accept the 40 hour a week job no one has offered me (something like 60 resumes out in the past two months, and the only answers have been a handful of, "We reviewed your application and went with someone else, we will look at it again if we get another openig, and another handful of scams).

The worst part is, I don't need much, and I don't need it for long; so the guilt of asking (when there are those who need it more dessperately than it seems to me I do) was hard to swallow. Then I get told I don't qualify because I don't have a job?

WTF?

[tfcocs.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this story. It should be mandatory reading for all social workers.

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Social workers *know* what people go thru but are powerless to change much. That's like asking your teller to change bank policy. It's the politicians who should read this.

[twicet.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this. I find it difficult to comprehend the fact, you served your country for several years, to then be denied food stamps!!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I have a strong hunch that this is a case of the Law of Unintended Consequences - in other words, that lawmakers' intentions were anything but keeping people stuck in poverty. But when policy is made by people who haven't been in that situation and who don't ever actually talk to those who are, stupid decisions are made.

Unfortunately starving because people are stupid and unimaginative is just as bad as starving because they're malicious.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

No: this is deliberate policy. Getting benefits is hard because it keeps numbers down. And keeping numbers down is good for getting votes.

So there are people who are making these policy decisions to STOP giving people benefits, and they know what it means. They just don't care. They are probably Randites who think that people who are poor are cattle who don't deserve help anyway.

I am a big fan of not attributing to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but this is a kind of wilful stupidity that I have a hard time telling apart from malice. After all nobody thinks they're evil: they rationalize their choices telling themselves that it's tough love, or that taxpayer money should not go to the poor because they are by definition not deserveing and so on: still makes me want to spit on them.

[michiexile]

Reacting to probably the least important bit of the story, but:
You live in EPA!?!? So did I until last March! Between the creek and 101.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Hee.... I am right there. It's more a slough, but that's me.

As to import, if I lived a mile west, things would be very different now.

Where are you now? (in general terms).

[enname.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joy. It is why I have worked myself into an early grave both studying and working, so I don't have to rely on government assistance. Assistance that is so low it doesn't meet rent, and with so many string attached that I nearly snap in two attempting to meet their demands... and then they go and lose five years worth of paper work and suggest I start all over again. If I am qualified. You have my sympathy.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Yeah it does keep you down. Ted, who probably will never be able to live independently, can't have more than 2k in savings. Or he will lose all his medical help.

So I have to get lawyers and bankers to somehow cobble together a way for him to survive when we die. And hope that it doesn't change too much, and can be flexible enough so that he isn't fucked over when there isn't someone who loves him to sort out any paperwork.

It's horrible that a parent can't save for a child, especially one that may never be able to work or live alone. If it were up to me, the lion's share of what we have would go to him because he's the one most likely to need it. How could they do that to people? Kick their most vulnerable? Ensure he lives in near poverty until his death? How is that the right thing to do?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

I am sure there is a way to put it in trust, so that he doesn't "own" it, but it's all dedicated to taking care of him.

[elf]

I played the food stamp & Medi-Cal game for a few years. A bit over three years, in fact--about 1.5 around each of my pregnancies. Sounds like it hasn't gotten any better.

At one point, my worker snapped at me and told me how annoyed she was that out of 50+ cases, she recognized my voice on her voicemail. How dare I demand actual time & attention from her! She has lots of other people to deal with! I should stop pestering her with questions about the meanings of auto-generated letters! (They kept sending me notes that my kid's medical coverage was going to be cut off. I'd call worker, and she'd assure me it wasn't; my case was in a weird spot between bureaucratic glitches, and the program that generated the cutoff warning letters didn't talk to the exceptions list.)

Erm. This was after the month I was late filing 'cos I gave birth and then two weeks later the baby was in the hospital; I called to make sure baby was covered, and she said, "I didn't know you were pregnant!" I bit my tongue and didn't say, "what, you didn't read THE APPLICATION FORM that explained why I was applying?" Of course she didn't. The last two workers I'd been transferred through hadn't seen fit to mention it to her, so it must not be important.

I suspect the welfare system is built on a premise of shame and hassle--they're hoping that one or the other of those, or both, keeps their numbers down.

Imagine being in your same circumstances--without good reading fluency. Or while tending a two-year-old child.

And yes, anything that makes it likely you could get out of poverty, cuts off the benefits before you can get there.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

I had exactly the same reaction when, at the end of my six months Jobcentre interview, they told me I had to give up school if a job - any job - came along. This was after they had kept me waiting for four hours, with no water or toilet and no idea if I'd be seen. I went away quivering with fury and have signed off the system. Because I could: unlike the cheerful 19 yr old single mom living in a hostel that was waiting alongside me.

Every time I hear about "benefit cheats" I want to hit somebody, and it's not the people on benefits.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Ain't that the truth!

People who complain about 'welfare queens' and 'benefit cheats' haven't ever had to even imagine being in a position where they would need public assistance, much less actually found themselves in one.

[evilrooster.livejournal.com]

Why does this remind me of the Dysfunctional Families Day thread on Making Light?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I needed that. It made me laugh.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how often I was told last year that I should apply for foodstamps.

By people who knew I was a student, no less.

*sigh* It is a stupid system.

[jpmassar.livejournal.com]

Is this relevant to you? ($3000 checks to Veteran students) ?

http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=23D66EDEBDA4F92F659FFBF7FCFCBEC3?diaryId=3197

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

One of the creepy things is that you still ave your petit bourgeois privilege -- you know how to work bureaucracy. In addition to compassion for the people in greater need, most of them don't know how to work a system to begin with . . .

That's pretty sad man.

[killslowly.livejournal.com]

I am sorry to hear that you are going through so much bullshit.

But it does not surprise me one bit. We all know how awfully pathetic the bureaucracy is, and how they deal with issues.

For example: "during the Northridge Earthquake, I saw many people from other countries getting food stamps, while driving BMWs and other nice cars.

But you, who actually needs some assistance, are given the run around.

But once again. If I act surprised and amazed and appalled, I would be lying and pretending.

Good luck Terry.

P.S.: can you enroll in SF for school? To far? Too much of a hassle? I'll be going through the same shit pretty soon and I feel your pain.

Re: That's pretty sad man.

[killslowly.livejournal.com]

I also forgot about a large sector that goes to Pasadena City College, who are the offsprings of rich business types from other countries, who also get financial aid from the state.

People have no fucking shame.