While I sit here, I'm trying to keep my stomach silent as it aches to be fed. I didn't have a chance to eat breakfast before I jumped on my bike and rode across town early this morning. Our goal was to try and make it to the office and secure a spot at the front of the line before the office opened at 7:00. I threw a couple of things in my bag, thinking I could just eat them as I waited. I was wrong. As soon as I sat down I noticed the NO FOOD OR DRINK posters plastered every 3 feet on the walls. They were even displayed on the section of the room that made a valiant attempt at being a two-way mirror. Its purpose was to try and hide the security put there to watch over us. I guess you never know what might happen when you put a group of hungry people in one room.
The room is painted a horrendous pink color, has no windows, the only source of light is coming from the fluorescent fixtures overhead. I feel like I'm trapped in a giant pepto bismal bottle. Although this bottle isn't doing anything to squelch the pains in my stomach. I think they're actually adding to the quesy feeling that stems from sitting in this place.
On top of no breakfast, I am not a morning person. I'm still readjusting to the morning work life I restarted 2 weeks ago. Today I had to get up yet an extra hour earlier to get to the office so I we wouldn't have to spend half our day here. As I alternate trying to read a book and scanning the room observing and watching the all the cute little kids clung to their mothers' side blink their sleepy eyes and bear a huge sleepy yawn, my eyes are starting to get heavy.
But don't fear, they help make sure you don't fall asleep and miss your name being called. Every couple of minutes, right when your eyes might think about closing, a head splitting announcement "Q88 & Q89 TO WINDOWS 2 & 3 PLEASE!" comes blasting over the intercom just in time to wake you and every sleeping child up. Finally, I'm up.
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I must admit. After I completed the process of getting my food stamps, I thought, "that wasn't that bad." All I had to do was fill out an application, ask for the time off, show up, wait a while, show my forms, and they'll send them in a couple of weeks. Some parts were a little difficult, some were annoying, and some were frustrating. But overall, not the worst.
But when I think about it some more, I realize, this process is truly a real life version of Darwin's survival of the fittest. I made it through the process successfully. But I had everything going for me, and there were still times when I was wishing I would have just slept in.
For example:
- I don't have kids. Imagine trying to get your kid(s) up that early in the morning, tote them across the city, and waiting in a muggy waiting room for hours trying to keep them busy.
- I'm literate and educated. Filling out those forms was much more difficult than your abc's. There was definitly some terminology on there that made me think twice. And I have a college education.
- I had a letter from AmeriCorps (the government program I work through) and Rebuilding Together (the non-profit I work for) verifying my income and that I was eligible for the program. Nobody else has this letter. Instead, they are required to bring in about 100 different papers and documents to prove their income and all the payments that they have to make.
- If I didn't get food stamps, I have a good support system that would definitely help me out if I'm going hungry. Even WELL before that point. In order to be independent, they are very helpful, however, I have resources I can turn to in times of trouble. People who live in poverty generally do not have this luxury. They are all they have.
- I have a flexible boss who let me take the time out that morning to go apply. In fact, the recommended that I go on that day. Those extra 3-4 hours it takes, is 3-4 hours of pay that they don't recieve that week. Also, sometimes their higher-ups are not NEAR as understanding as mine.
- Finally, I am white. I don't have a stigma attached to the color of my skin. Some may agree or disagree with this one. But I do know a couple of people who walked into that same office that had a lot more difficulties than I did. Coincidence? You decide.
I did not have ANY of these walls to fight through when jumping through the food stamp hoop. Some people want to know why we let so many take advantage of the system?
I think the better question is.... What happens to all those that aren't able to take advantage of the system?
finally is right! i've been waiting all my life for a blog called "rebuilding nola with a schrammer and nails." sure, i didn't exactly know you until 2008, but the point is this:
ReplyDelete"The room is painted a horrendous pink color, has no windows, the only source of light is coming from the fluorescent fixtures overhead. I feel like I'm trapped in a giant pepto bismal bottle."
that paragraph alone made me realize what i needed to fill the void in my life.
The portion you added at the end is great. an interesting and funny read with a strong message. like the bullets. congrats, your a terrific writer.
ReplyDeleteSeriously Bridgette I had no idea you were such a writer. You illustrated my experience better than I could have!
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess this breaks the stereotype I had that the blogosphere was solely the domain of sedentary, foul smelling 45 year-old men who unknowingly have chunks of chocolate fudge caught in the unkempt tangles of their facial hair.
ReplyDeleteSince I basically avoided your question on it, and since I’m looking for a means to procrastinate on work I have to do for this other job, I’ll give you my two cents on the ol’ to-get or not-to-get food stamps debate via this great new internet invention.
I took our job and moved here with plans to get food stamps. When I went down to pick up the application, I saw a similar crowd to what you described – though I’m sure on a much smaller scale since it wasn’t the morning line to actually apply or renew. The only point of contention I raise is that the pink is more of a flamenco than pepto bismal, but I digress.
What I saw hit me pretty hard. It was like seeing 100 years’ worth of cultural history condensed into a sitting room, with the causes, effects, and symptoms of cyclical poverty in low-income, black populations laid out right there before me. Exhausted mothers trying to keep watch over crying, hungry kids; security officers pulling a man out the door who was ranting about the corruption and ineffectiveness of the so-called ‘system’; old men with defeated eyes quietly waiting, as if year after year of standing in Family Services lines forces you to just grow numb to it all as a means of self-preservation.
Walking back to my car I threw the application in the trash can, vowing that with enough discipline and being careful about other spending (there’s no cover charge to drink beer by a river) I could make our stipend work well enough. I’m aware that my taking food stamp funds wouldn’t mean someone else couldn’t get them. But there is a finite amount of federal dollars to go around, and if less money is needed for programs like food stamps—which, in my mind, is simply putting a band-aid on the deeper problem of chronic inequality—more money can be allocated for programs which provide a more fundamental approach to solving the problem, like enhanced spending on education and health care.
Do I think that my skipping out on the $160-something per month I could have if I wanted to makes any difference, besides leading me to eat the same thing for lunch every single day? Of course not. I’m not an idiot. Well, with baseboards, yes. With this stuff, no. Now, does it feel good to take the moral highground and talk down to my peers? Yes, it absolutely does.
I’m kidding. I enjoyed reading your take on it. This is all just food for thought…no pun intended. Good lord that was a lame joke. I’ve got to get back to work. Talk to you later -- in person, not over this newfangled internet cyberland thing.