braintissue

It seems that the governor of California would sooner cut needed services to the poorest and most vulnerable of the state’s population - Children, the elderly and the poor. Something has to be done to stop yet one more strike against those who have nothing more than a monthly stipend, job training, childcare and medical insurance. To take this away from those in need would surely send many into a life of crime. Poverty tends to do that to people.

I hate telling people this, but if the governor of the state of California decides to take away the services that are available to those who qualify for them, I will be in a lot of trouble. I am living proof that having a college education does not guarantee that you will be employed. I am not employed, and I am convinced that it is not because of a down economy or because there is a plethora of greedy, unscrupulous would-be employers. I am either too qualified for some jobs or not qualified for others. It is a double edged sword for people who, like me, spent some time with their noses in a book, their eyes glued to a computer screen as they spent night after night in a virtual classroom earning the right to expect to be paid a decent and livable wage.

And granted, there are a lot of jobs out there waiting to be had, but, if what I read in the local papers here is true, the Governator intends to make the poorest people in California pay for the sins of a less than frugal state government. Of course, like many other things that are not fair, that seem unjust, that just smack of something akin to Marie-Antoinette and her damned cake.

Not enough people care about the issue enough to actually get their butts off the chair and do something about it. I do, but I am only one person, and it is going to take a lot more convincing than what one person can effect.

Protesters are needed immediately, but…

We are so afraid of the great ideas we each come up with that when it comes to the idea that we should do something not only for ourselves but for others and also for the principle of the matter, we shrivel up like so many men in an ice cold pool. We are scared to death of letting people down, of failing, of  not making a difference on a grand scale that we are not willing to try anything for the sake of those who live on a small scale.

I’m baaaa-aaaack…

Over the years I have softened a bit in the way that I write about familial issues, but on things that will affect the populace as a whole I have mellowed a bit but there is still the bite that you have all grown to know and to love and with what I have learned over the time that it has taken me to learn to pull my head out of my butt coupled with the fire that has never died out you have the new, improved and WAY bitchier Aunty…Infamous Aunty.

Enough is enough, guys.

The poor and unfortunate folks have always paid a heavy price for being poor. With the CalWorks program, those who had no job history and therefore no hope in the way of getting a job that involved a real chance to move up in the ranks actually have that option through this program. It doesn’t help people like me who went to and are still going to college trying to get to the place where they want to be economically - the majority of the jobs available, though there is the option to work at any job, are not geared, really, to give anyone like me, or the next couple hundred people with a college degree (especially anything more than an Associates degree), anything more than just a job that we will hate until we can work at a job found in the industries we want to work in. However, these jobs that are available to those who are participants in the CalWorks program are meant to give those who do not want to be on the county welfare rolls a chance to not be on them anymore.

The truth about it all.

Too many people with too many assumptions about how easy it is to get welfare are out in the world, sorely uninformed and very poorly educated about what it is that is available to people who are citizens of the country. That’s right - in order to get county aid, you have GOT TO BE a U.S. citizen, and you have to prove it. By proving it I mean that you have to come up with actual documents that you got from the actual government offices that you actually have to request them from. And you have to come up with a LOT of proof.

Your kids have to be enrolled in school. If you are exempt from the GAIN/CalWorks participation portion of Welfare 2 Work, you have to prove, with a doctor’s signed report of your medical history, that you cannot do anything with the W2W program because you are in need of constant care, are at the doctor’s office more than you would be at a job, that you have to be at home because to be not at home would be dangerous to your overall health. You also have to give up all your financial information, including bank account information including the balance, how long you have owned the account, and if it is jointly owned. You have to prove that if you own a car that you either owe money on it or depend on it so much that to sell it just to eat would cause you more distress than it would do any good. This same principle applies to all items considered as being a luxury, including jewelry (yes, even family heirlooms), land/real estate (unless you are living in the house - which, of course, you have to prove this as well), and other such items which would be deemed as “of value” by those who take this information from you.

Yes, I know they work hard, but there are some welfare workers who…

There are some welfare case load managers who down right and without my stopping for pause SHOULD NOT be employed by any government entity. Especially when they are dealing with the public and especially now, when the demographic of welfare recipient is not what it was just a decade ago. Some of these people take particular pleasure in ensuring that you understand well that though you had a lot of stuff, a great big house, nice cars, a nice life, that part of your life is over with and they make no secret that you sort of deserve what it is that you are going through.

YES, that is correct - there are some workers who have no scruples about making it understood that they not only do not think that you are better than they are, they have the very nerve to make it seem as though they are better than you are, smarter than you are, and when you try to interject and object to their obliviousness to the fact that you were not always in the position to need help, they still feel that they are better than you are because they have a job and you are in need. It is almost some sick and demented form of Karma that they are not only able but allowed to treat you like this. Believe me, I know and have spent my time writing emails, making phone calls, sending letters and calling elected officials just to make it known that I am not some sort of urchin that deserves to be treated with disdain because I happen to have had a decent life - quite surely one that such a person described herein would be very envious of.

And they pay these people, too

The people whom I just described are some of the rudest, meanest, in your face types, and they do not care that you are in the worst shape you have ever been in. It is a power thing with a lot of them, because once you have a job that is with the local , county or state government, apparently you are akin to Midas and everything will turn to gold.

The state pays these mental midgets to be nasty, to be “stern”, to be “firm,” but I think the state needs to remember that some people do not even know the actual meaning of those words and have decided to go straight gangsta on people - truly, badly needy people - just because they can. Hey man, if a paycheck is the only thing that separates you from me, and the only thing that defines you as being better is that paycheck, I cannot WAIT until I am collecting my fat paycheck - the one that will take a piece of paper from a University to have, just so that I can walk my happy ass back into that God forsaken welfare office on Holt Ave and show these people what it looks like to be in the top tier of the tax bracket.

At least I know that I have been there before, and I will be there again. I bitch about county workers, but the truth is that those people are only a lack of a paycheck away from being right where I am. I know how badly it sucks to not have a job to go to, and I also know how much more it sucks to have to walk through the doors of the county Department of Public Services doors, swallow my pride, and ask for help. It sucks, but I have hope. I have lived large,  and I know that I will be living large again.  I just have that propensity, that drive, that ambition and the manifestation tools in me to make it happen and make it happen soon.

Lots of other people are not so inclined…

Lots of people are not meant to live large, but this does not mean that they should have to live like paupers, begging to be cared for and having the public at large believe that those who are on welfare are all illegal immigrants, all unmarried urban mothers who have no hope for the future, are what the assumption has always been. Though the days of the generational welfare trap are still here, there are fewer and fewer generations of mothers who are on welfare permanently. The rules do not allow for it to be this way.  Welfare recipients are obligated to get job training because the county and state provide all the recipients need in order to get off the rolls and land on your feet. I know this because I have sought help from the local GAIN office and these people are there to help those in need of the help. They actually do their jobs and they do them very well.

We cannot let this happen.

There is no more fearful thing that can happen to a person than to have your world turned upside down by job loss, then home loss, then hope loss.  We all sit here , whining about an economy that not one of us can truly do anything about other than wait it out. We want it all and we want it now and well, guys, I am here to tell you that it will not happen that way - someone, always, inevitably, invariably pays for the sins of other people. This time, though, the people who will pay are not the faces of the criminally here who have broken federal immigration laws to fulfill a stereotype of the border hopper who takes our services but who does not give back.

We cannot let the least of us suffer, because they already suffer enough, perhaps more than the majority of us does. We want so badly to blame the poor for things that we cannot control because poor people are a blight to society, and poor people are generally uneducated, illiterate, inbred, and diseased, because people on welfare are nasty, icky, socially unacceptable beings who deserve to be in the position they are in because dammit, they are on drugs, are prostitutes, are winos, hobos, crackheads, and those deemed undesirable by people who know what it looks like to be in line behind one of these people.

The assumptions are wrong, biased and even dangerously so.

People like feeling superior to other people ( I know this because I have an uncle who seems to think that he is not only better than me, but a whole lot o other people too.) and when they can find someone with a weakness, whether that weakness is real or perceived, whether it is intentional or whether it is simply a product of a draw of fate, said people prey on the poor as if it is their right and their privilege to do so.

Welfare recipients are not bad people, not illegal people, not what we have been thinking they are, and I know this because I am one of them. I am one of those people whose lives just took a horrible dive, but unlike a lot of them, I have hope. I have an education. I am a published writer. I have talents and abilities that allow me the grace of knowing that one day soon I will no longer need to be on the rolls.

Welfare is not something that everyone wants to be on, not even those who are hopeless.

Too many people make the assumption that there is a bevy of riches to be made when receiving welfare. I will tell you this - in Los Angeles county, a family of 5 receives a little more than 900.00 per month to pay rent and buy incidentals. Along with this there is a stipend of 540.00 in food stamps, and of course, the most important thing of all, medical insurance for those five people.

If you have five people living under your roof, then you know how much it takes to minimally care for them. It probably takes WAY more than the amounts listed above. This is the truth and this is the reality of welfare. It is not anything that anyone could possibly get rich getting, and there is a 60 month lifetime limit of benefits to each recipient. It is not forever and it is not easy to qualify for. It is hard on a person’s sense of self worth, and it brings to life the feelings that you could never dream to have to feel. It is the saddest day in the world when you find out that you qualify for county aid.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has no idea the impact

The governor has, in short, really screwed up one of the world’s largest economies. In the time that he has been in office we have heard his promises, been wowed by what he has done and irked by what he has taken from us.

If he takes away aid for the county and state’s poorest individuals, he will, in effect, be the final cause of what will…WILL follow. The crime rate in most of the state will rise. There will be less kids who are of legal working age (15 1/2 - 16)  in school where they belong because these kids will no longer have the time to be kids - they will be at work trying to help support their families. Mothers will not be able to stay home to raise the younger kids, and fathers will end up having to work two jobs just to make ends meet, and these are not the kinds of jobs that people fight to have. There is no resume involved, no education involved, nothing that would merit a decent job involved when the jobs in question do not make more per hour than the state minimum wage.

The governor needs badly to rethink the state’s financial issues and realize that his issues and his mistakes are not to be healed and made right on the backs of millions of Californians - Californians like me and my family. Enough is absolutely enough already. As it is we are on the brink of major, irreversible catastrophe of the financial sort because this same person who wants to cut spending and further damn those of us who have no choice but to get help from the county but yet cutting us completely off from the only safety net we have.

Make no mistake - I, like many other people, do not want to take this help. It is not an option that I wanted to take and it is not something that I care to keep taking, but it is here and is blatant and is something that I am actually glad is there for people who have no more options. I have no more options but to take the help that is granted to me. Not all of us are generational welfare dependents. I would rather work than collect welfare any day of the week. Ask anyone who receives state help if they would rather be working and the majority would tell you that yes, they would rather work because the alternative is not all that it has been assumed it is.

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