Don't Take Your Coach Bag When You Apply for Food Stamps

(my new least favorite place, photo credit: wkrn.com)

Two and a half months ago I began my year as an AmeriCorps VISTA, a Volunteer In Service To America. (If you're confused--think domestic PeaceCorps). I really planned on writing more about this experience, but to be honest, it's been fairly uneventful. Pretty much your run of the mill 40-hour-a-week job. I'm just not getting paid much.

Today was different.

A few weeks ago I met with the VISTA coordinator for my project who encouraged me to apply for food stamps. My living stipend doesn't count towards income, so I was told that I could receive $200 per month for groceries! Sign. Me. Up.

This morning I got up at 5, showered, got ready for work and drove to the local Department of Human Services which, of course, is in a sketchy part of town. I got there at 6 but they didn't open the doors until 6:30. There were already about 30 people in line. Oh yeah, it was freezing. And raining. And still dark.

The security guard unlocked the door a very much appreciated 5 minutes early. He had a spiel that included such comic gems as "hold on to your personal items, there are thieves among us, you know who you are," (ha) and, "welcome to your home for the next few hours" (ha).

I handed my appointment sheet to the guard at the front desk and walked into the waiting room where I sat and waited for my name to be called.

And waited.

7:15 am - Carried on a conversation with the nice family behind me, laughing with them over the antics of their 18 month old. This was the high point of the morning.

And waited.

8:00 am - Tried to avoid a conversation with the creepy 46 year old man (he told me his age) who asked me how old I was, my first name, and told me he'd like to have another child someday. I'm pretty sure he was a sex offender.

AND WAITED.

8:30 am - Avoided eye contact with the homeless men who were probably staring at the wall behind me.

8:40 am - Texted my boss to let her know I was probably going to be late.

8:45 am - Social worker called my name.

If you're keeping score (and I was) at this point I had been at DHS for 2 hours and 45 minutes.

It took the social worker about 8 minutes to figure out that I have too many "resources," (read: money in my bank account that I wasn't committing FRAUD by lying about, and a paid-for 2004 Corolla) to qualify for food stamps.

In the words of the Unsinkable Blair -- Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

If the social worker hadn't been so darn frank & sympathetic, I would have come across the desk. "So," I said to her, "Spend it all, sell the car, and come back?" "Yep," she replied, doing that slow head nod that means: "I know this is bullshit. At least you don't have to give food stamps to 31 pregnant 19 year olds and 8 drug addicts over the next 8 hours like I do."

As I walked out of DHS, passing the crack-fiends and meth-heads, I couldn't do anything but laugh. And process.

And here's what I decided to take away from this completely ludicrous morning, in bullet form (because this is a long story already):

• I fully understand why people who have resources available to them do not always seek them out. If you've walked into DHS to seek help to keep yourself from becoming destitute because, HELLO, you're a little bit financially responsible, and you are told to come back when you're destitute, you don't come back. It is HUMILIATING to be sitting in that office with a full time job, dressed for work, and feel 300 (at least) pairs of eyes on you wondering what you're doing there with them. Who wants to go through that twice?

• I have no idea what people do when they don't have understanding bosses like mine. Or, in more extreme cases, when they don't speak the same language as their boss. I got to work at 9:30. I'm supposed to be there at 9. I didn't have to wait for the bus, I could drive myself to work in my personal vehicle. In any other situation, I would lose my job.

• Why in the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks is it okay for these people who are CLEARLY drug addicted, felons, committing fraud, whatever, to receive food stamps/medicaid/housing subsidies? I get that it has to be a tough process so the truly needy get help. But the truth as I saw it was a process so convoluted and frustrating that the only people who have time to deal with it are those who DON'T HAVE A JOB. Not to mention (see second bullet) if you try to go through the process while you have a job, you'll probably lose it. Then you'll have to spend every penny you have in savings before you're eligible for assistance. And then (see first bullet) if you have one ounce of pride, you try anything to find another way--any other way--to make ends meet.

M, self proclaimed libertarian that he is, listened to my whole rant on the way to work and said, "Yeah, babe. It's a self-perpetuating system. Once you get in, you never get out."

I tend to think of myself as a learned-liberal. Meaning, for the most part, I'm a social liberal living in a state with a lot of people who disagree with me. I've had to learn the best practices for speaking my mind. I'm proud of my feelings on the matter of the state bearing some responsibility for the basic needs of it's people. Generally, a whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-it's-parts perspective.

However, having seen it from the inside, I recognized a much more conservative turn in my thought process today. Granted, I'm coming from a place where I (one day soon) hope to be on the able-to-give end of the economic spectrum. I'm still working through this morning's events (jeeze, at 7 pm it feels like days ago). The truth is, I'm not destitute-yet, and I can ask my Dad for money if I need it. But, I sat under a microscope (not to mention in a cesspool) for HOURS today and have nothing to show for it. Disappointing, disheartening, and (aha!) enlightening.

The VISTA poverty experience I'm supposed to be having. However, I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to walk away from it flip flopping on my political leanings.

Barbara Ehrenreich, I'm channeling you, but I'm living somewhere between poverty and the millions you made off this book. Can you hear my brain turning this one over and over and over? Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.