Welfare & Assistance

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  No Way to Communicate

  Mother: Ashley O

  “I don’t have a phone, so I have to use pay phones. That’s the closest phone. It’s been broken for two years now. There’s another phone, too. But I don’t go there because of drug dealers over there. I have to walk to where the train station is to use a phone to call the welfare office.”

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  Can i have something to eat?

  Mother: Imani S

  “He was asking the case worker for something to eat.  I don’t have child care, so I have to take him to my appointments.  If he was in day care I wouldn’t have to have lugged him early in the morning to an appointment to the welfare office to try to get food stamps and medical coverage.  I can’t help it if my baby’s hungry.  I was thinking ‘I’m not going to lie to you miss, he’s hungry.’”

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  Make with these hands money

  Mother: Shelly G

  Let’s say Welfare is giving me this money… every two weeks I get a check but I still have to make with these hands money. Because my kids still need to eat for those two weeks. So they say food banks… the food banks give you canned food. Who’s gonna eat cans of tomato sauce? Nobody. I may do someone’s hair and be able to get noodles with that tomato sauce to feed the kids, to feed myself.

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  In need of childcare

  Mother: Shelly G

  I was working for Lowe’s making $13.04 an hour. I lost my job because Welfare didn’t put their paperwork through and I lost my child care provider. I didn’t lose my job because I wanted to not work. I lost my job because in two weeks they would’ve fired me anyway for not showing up... 

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  Brian drinking milk

  Mother: Tamika H

  The WIC office, they just changed the baby’s milk because they lost their contract with Similac. But they could’ve called us and told us so we could’ve known what to expect… but they didn’t do that.

• 
  Waiting

  Mother: Crystal S

  My daughter said, “I am tired of waiting.”  You go to the doctor’s office, and you wait hours to be seen.  They give you an appointment at eight o’clock.  At twelve o’clock, you might be sitting in that same spot.

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  Medical care

  Mother: Crystal S

  There are some benefits. They provide your children with vaccinations, things that they can’t get in third world countries, things that we take for granted… they can take care of me medically but the rest of me is just dangling out there, hanging on a rope...

• 
  Buying clothes

  Mother: Crystal S

  Thank God for layaway. You can take and layaway a few pairs of pants, or go on the sales rack and they have $3 shirts, grab the kids a few. Last week, the kids needed jackets and I went to Foreman Mills and I was on the sales rack. I was there for hours trying to find stuff on the sales rack. Two-dollar shirts, three-dollar shirts, four-dollar pair of pants… whatever you can find within your reach. I know the government, they see the people who are on Welfare and they’re wearing Gucci and Prada and Polo. If I've got something like that it must’ve been on the three-dollar rack.

   

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  Deadbeat dad

  Mother: Crystal S

  That is my oldest daughter’s father. He’s a part of her life when it’s convenient for him, whenever he feels like, oh, I have a daughter today. Financially, nothing. Even when I had a job they made me waste two days of work, going down there to file for child support. If you want your medical and you wanna get food stamps for the child you have to take the child’s father to court for child support. Now what happens if I was afraid of him? What happens if he beat me up but my child need medical? You're telling me I HAVE to take him to court? 

   

• 
  Full schedule

  Mother: Crystal S

  They talk about people who are on SSI and Welfare, how they’re on Welfare just because they don’t want anything out of life. People are on it because sometimes they don’t have any other option. I really wanted to show that calendar and say: Employment. Is it really possible? Do you know somebody that’s going to hire me when I need to take all those days off? 

   

   

   

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  Tired

  Mother: Angela S

  This is about survival of the fittest. I had to eat out of people's leftovers and I had to wash up in people's backyards in the winter time out of their little faucet, out in the cold. I’ve really struggled. And I’m tired. When do I get a break?

• 
  A day's tips

  Mother: Angelica R

  "That’s a picture of my miserable tips today. It's $5, for six hours of work."

• 
  A hard day's work

  Mother: Angelica R

  Those are my swollen feet when I got home today, after waiting tables.  That’s what my feet look like, they hurt.  It’s not easy.  I’m doing it because my kids needed clothes and sneakers.

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  Stacks of Paper

  Mother: Joanna C

  "It never ends because I got through one stack of papers to file like that this week. I have another stack that big in a drawer, plus the lady keeps coming and bringing more and more paperwork.  I’m like, how the heck am I going to get through all this paperwork? My supervisor said, 'Oh no, you’re not going to get through it. You’re never gonna finish and it’s never going to be gone.'"

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  Access Card

  Mother: Quiana  H

  "This has no money on it.  It's just a piece of plastic."

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  Benefits letter

  Mother: Quiana  H