10 September 2005 - 7:04am
the pre-criminalization of the poor
Yesterday I went to my appt with food stamp office. I brought every single record they asked for. I was completely prepared. Except I wasn't.
I brought my current bank records, but only the first page which includes the sum of my deposits and the sum of my withdrawals. That wasn't enough, I was supposed to bring all the pages. I brought my doctor's notice, but it was written/signed two weeks ago. Not recent enough. I brought the letter with the important lines highlited from Workman's comp that states the next check will be my last. also not right, she wants my last "pay stub" ( I brought four, but couldn't find the last one) and she wants it to read that it was my last check. If you didn't read my earlier blogs, my checks netted $277.05, which was barely enough to pay the rent and eat. Keeping my phone on and paying for internet which I need b/c this disability keeps me home most of the time and paying to leave the house and extra food ate up all my savings.) I pointed out that the letter I received stated that the next check I receive will not include that information (highlited in yellow and pointed out previously in the interview.) She pressed the issue until I got a bit frustrated and *snippy* which generated this look of anger on her part. Of course, I backed off b/c I need her to approve this and lordy knows how vindictive she could be. Finally that was cleared up.
Then, despite my letter from my doctor affirming my disability and the letter from workman's comp that further proved I was disabled (they would not pay without assurance that I was disabled), she asked why I don't return to work. I pointed out that I was disabled and didn't know when that would happen (tho I'm praying for Oct. 14th before they have to consider the position open and begin the hiring process)and she gave me this look of doubt. Then she asked what was I going to do to pay my bills. I said I was told to got to the Public Assistance office to get rent subsidy and I had already been to the state disablity office and provided her with the statement from them that I had applied for it.
Now she wants to know why I didn't go to the PA office first. Well, I surfed the online site for information on how to handle my lack of income and there was no procedure information. she told me if I went there first, I could get my food stamps thru them. Ugh! No one tells you anything. all the paperwork you receive from these offices do not give you any fucking information on how to do this shit, they just say over and over that if you are convicted of a felony you will lose any chance for public assistance ever. Oh, also, rent assistance for a single person living alone is $200 and some dollars. how does anyone pay the fucking rent while any disability is going on? I have no fucking clue. She told me that I will have to find someone who will pay the balance of my rent and certify that. WTF!!!! I can't even get over that. If I'm getting money from someone if there was someone I knew who pay the balance of my rent, I prolly wouldn't be there in the 1st place!! However, if you are a woman with a child or children, they will pay the entire amount and give you first pick on subsidized housing in one of the *projects* [I can't think of the right word, but you know, one of the areas of buildings that are rife with crime b/c every one is so frigging poor}. You also qualify for many more food stamps which are now in a debit card of sorts and no supermarket can deny taking them as they did in the past b/c it was too much work for them to process. Plus you get some cash assistance (clothing, diapers, metrocard and such that you need to pay for) and help with child care. You are still pretty poor, but you automatically skip much of the process.
Well, fuck! of course women in poorer neighborhoods have children. And they get information from friends and family on how to go thru the process more simply. Generations of families who earn the disgust of conservatives and others for living on the system and not looking for a job have no clue why that is. Are you encouraged to do so? I don't know about that. what I do know is women (and men) who are raised in the projects get very poor educations as they are not located in *good* neighborhoods (NIMBY) and have very little resources to get to college which these days is crucial for success in earning a good living. Frankly, in the world of corporations, the corporations need to have more labor available so they can keep the wages down. It's supply and demand that is not explained in cartoons. It is the source of starving people who will take any job whatsoever and will break strikes to work just to earn some type of living. Union busting is important to corporations for just that reason. And it is the source of how difficult it is to organize a union and strike when wages are already so low people can't maintain much more than a hand to mouth lifestyle and even that will not fill their bellies properly.
I'm off-topic again. I had to sign a form for women only (no copy given to me) that certified that no one was hurting me, beating me or forcing me into sex. Now, the stated reason for this is, and this just kills me, has nothing to do with helping anyone out of situations unless it is to a shelter and who the hell wants to live there? [esp if it's your apt to begin with]. And who is it that dare force anyone who may be in a bad situation but does not want to anger such an abuser and make their lives even worse. Abusers kill women and most of the time it's b/c they have been forced somehow out of their lives.
The crux of this statement you must sign points out that you may not receive social services in this case b/c it will somehow support an abusive situation. Does anyone answer yes? How could you? You need help, end of story. you can't risk not getting all the help you need and if you can keep yourself from drowning somehow, maybe then you will have what it takes to report your abuse and get that person out of your life. Otherwise, you may need this abusing person to help with cash assistance. Abusers manage the money for control and control is what the abuser wants. if you get denied all the help you need, you need that abuser even more in your life.
The next thing you must agree to is "finger imaging". I completely balked at that. It is supposed to insure your identity for food stamps and other assistance. Just in case you sell some of your food stamps. As I pointed out before, you get a debit card with your picture and are issued a pin to use to access it. Now, if you do sell your food stamps for money, it certainly doesn't stop you from buying the things that person wants and trading it. Again, the fingerprinting makes no difference at the store. Your identity is confirmed by your card. A store can't check your finger prints.
now, your prints will go in the main system. What that means for instance is if you are in a store of any type and a crime, say robbery, is committed, the police have access to your prints and identity and will come to interrogate you and want an explantion for your presence. You are considered a criminal before you even commit a crime.
As I said, I balked at that. No one else except people who wish to own a gun get fingerprinted, but if you are a person in need, you must do so. I already thought there was no fucking way I was allowing myself to be finger imaged. As I had to return with my extra bank statements, I didn't need to be printed that day, I could return and do it the when I dropped off my statements. I don't want to do. I just don't.
The interview was finished by this woman saying that *if* I qualified, I would get the stamps a month after I completed these tasks. *If* I qualified. In the meantime, I don't know how I will survive.
I did ask an old lover who is very wealthy and was very generous with me when we were dating if he would give me a small business loan and wrote a great pitch for it outlining everything I was doing and what I needed the money for. he sent me a quick email back from JFK (and his blackberry) that he was on his way to Geneva and London and would be back on Friday (yesterday) and would be in touch. i considered that a good sign and hope to hear from him today. Please, please, my fingers and toes are crossed, please let him come thru. B/c I'm desperate and I don't know what else to do.
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Comments
Not to be rude but getting fingerprinted seems to be a small price for getting a free hand-out.
What is the purpose of fingerprinting, except to treat the poor as criminals? This supposedly is a free country. Are we really so eager to produce a national database with personal information of law abiding American citizens?
(Since 9/11, there's been a lot of focus on national security. Yet 9/11 was perpetrated by illegal aliens. So why exactly does the Patriot Act focus nearly all of its new powers on American citizens?)
Oh, and it's not a free handout. It is our society taking care of itself. Maybe you'd prefer that poor folks just lived on the streets, like in Calcutta, starving to death?
(And if you lose your income, and find yourself destitute, do you really think that society should just give you the boot and treat you like a criminal?)
As I *clearly* pointed out, it is unnecessary. We treat the poor any way we choose b/c we don't like them. And what I also pointed out, the poor are needed to keep wages down. Not everyone gets to be well off. It would cause inflation. If the bottom wages were $50,00 a yr, then the middle income would be 1/2 million and the rich would make something in a new number that hasn't been invented yet.
www.bitchingandmoaning.org
I hate to tell you this, hon, but I had 5 doctors, including the one SS sent me to, saying I was disabled and because the Judge didn't like me, it took me 5 years to get my benefits. Benefits I earned while working for the government, where I was fingerprinted. The fingerprinting is their way of telling you that you are now government property. Any time you deal with the government you give up civil liberties. Republicans don't seem to have a problem with this. Democrats should, but they're bought an paid for by the same corporations that benefit from victimizing the poor, so they turn a blind eye.
I hope your friend will help you out, because there is no alternative if you don't have family you can lean on. While my case was on appeal, I lost everything I had - my apartment, a house full of furniture, and I had to move from Philadelphia to stay with relatives, so I'm stuck on a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no friends and no options. I'm one of the lucky ones, in that I didn't end up homeless. I didn't have the option of being a stripper or prostitute - I'm not cute enough - and that's what most women end up having to do.
The only way to get by on $200. a month rent is to have roommates. If three people get together they can get a small apartment in a bad neighborhood for 600 or so. Of course, you have no privacy, but that's another price you pay for getting sick in America. You're right - Americans despise the poor and the disabled. They look at us as defective, or lazy. This country has not a scrap of "Christian Charity" left in it. Personally, when I was able to work, I never begrudged women being able to feed their kids, because I know poor women don't have options. Abortion, condoms, even the right to say "no" can all cost money poor women don't have. Men leave and no matter what the Religious Right legislates, they always will. We need a societal structure that treats women and children like people. This one doesn't.
You should read my post on what poor women go through if they CAN scrape up the money for an abortion.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements
One correction:
> As I said, I balked at that. No one else except people who wish to own > a gun get fingerprinted, but if you are a person in need, you must do > so.
You also get fingerprinted if wish to become either a legal permanent resident or a naturalized citizen.
a friend also pointed out that you get fingerprinted for some jobs, however those don't go into the government system.
I don't know what to say about immigrants. A choice of sorts? I mean, I believe they came here for a better life, but for the poor, we're stuck. And we are already born citizens, born into the laws and system of our government which really exists to protect us at whatever level it does.
www.bitchingandmoaning.org
I arrived here by a rather circular route, following links on the political connections of those involved in awarding contracts for disater relief in the wake of Katrina.
I commend mediagirl on her research regarding the business connections between former Bush fixer, Joe Allbaugh, and Mississippi Govenor Haley Barbour, and for being on point regarding this.
I also commend mediagirl for providing 'gballsout' a venue to share her story.
There is a sharp contrast drawn between these two entries, on the one hand we see an apparent incestuos web of connections among those administration insiders, that are busily handing out government largesse to the politically connected, and on the other, the difficulty of one of our own citizens in getting help, one that is now living on the brink.
To gballsout,
I extend my fervent wish and meager prayers for you to persevere through the fear of financial uncertainty and the discouragment you must certainly feel in facing in your current circumstance.
To all I say, there but for the grace of God .....
I find the telling of your story both cogently relevant, and brave.
Relevant, as it is important for us all to understand what occurs in the lives of our fellow citizens when a tragedy befalls them, whether it be from a collective and shared calamity, like hurricaine Katrina, or the entirely personal disaster of a psychological illness.
... and brave?
Yes. Brave.
I am guessing this whole ordeal has been humiliating enough, so that you may have had reservations about sharing your experience, yet you gleaned it is important to challenge the common characterizations, that helping our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters in need, is a scamming of the taxpayer by lazy welfare cheats.
Unfortunately the whole process of applying for help has the context that you are guilty of being just that, until you can prove your 'innocence' and verify the legitimate need.
The Right has no problem catagorizing the necessity of propping up the most profitable of business interests, like the energy sector, or the patriotic necessity of supporting military adventurism in the middle east, and then strapping the staggering debt involved in funding such policy onto the backs of future generations, but it applies an entirely different set of rationales to investing in the lives and common welfare of our fellow citizens.
So I applaud your courage in candidly telling us your story and providing the proper contrasting reality beyond those all too common characterizations.
While I applaud your courage in facing your condition squarely and seeking help, I am equally appalled that your own father would further compound your situation by 'kicking you when you're down'.
I am sure that must have felt really great during this time of need.
Let me guess .... he voted for Bush?
I believe one of the more fundamental problems we face as a society, is the unexamined belief in the underlying assumptions of unfettered capitalism, the notion that true value is solely determined by the financial incentives involved, that profit correlates to value, and that only those endeavors that are iimmediately profitable, are deemed worthy of pursuit.
In that lexicon, only the cream of ideas and products rise to the top, and people are judged equally worthy or not, by their degree of profitablity.
That might be an expedient philosophy for the broadest alloucution of resources, but it is of only marginal use in determining true longterm value, particularly so in the lives of individual people.
Are the lives and contributions of the most profitable in our society, people like Ken Lay, George Bush, and Donald Trump, really of a higher societal value and have a more positive impact on our culture, than say, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Vincent Van Gogh?
gballsout, in spite of your present circumstance, I find you a formidable and valuable person, right now in the midst of your current troubles. I have even higher hopes and respect for your better future, so I urge you, do not succumb to the shame invoking hype involved in seeking help, and don't succumb to the momentary impulses of anger or even to your father's judgements and projected fears.
My Sincerest Regards
darjeeling
I wanted to send you a private message, but I guess you aren't *registered* or I can't figure it out. your message here was appreciated on several levels.
My friends, who are supportive, do often find my outspokeness on some subjects frightening. I hear: don't talk about your mental illness, don't talk about circumcision, don't challenge people for their statements/beliefs and various other *ugly* topics I bring up. I like to bring the ugly out. for them, I think they are afraid of their weaknesses (including arguing a point---they don't want to be challenged) and think if they say nothing, nobody notices their version of ugly in their lives.
I don't know, maybe some people can't see the weaknesses others have, but I see them. It just takes some observation. I don't dislike anyone for it. If they have low self esteem, I see it, but it doesn't change what I think of them. People like to say that "everyone has flaws", but they are afraid to admit to their own and think if they don't, then somehow those flaws don't exist or they worry they will lose the good opinion of others.
My real point is: it's not that I want to use this blog to whine, I hope I don't come across that way, I just want to get *my* story out, which I believe is the story other people share. I even got a couple comments here from people who've dealt with these problems in their lives. And I want to write it from a personal level. Years ago there was this op-ed in the NYTimes by a woman (whose name I've utterly forgotten) called the Personal and the Political. i read a book of her collected columns and her introduction explained the title. The personal *is* the political.
We don't know how various groups of people really live. We only know our own lives (if we're lucky and have had good therapy) and make guesses at others. So telling my story isn't so much b/c I think I'm so *important* as the very serious and more political posts here, but I represent a significant group of people and their challenges. And I have an eye for what I believe needs to be looked at very hard.
www.bitchingandmoaning.org