Work and Child Care

Employment Opportunities

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  Job Hunting

  Mother: Ashley O

  "We didn’t get anything but applications that day. We filled them out, but two employees, as a matter of fact, told us that you will not get a job there unless you keep coming back like every week.  And I just felt like that’s so much energy to put on a thrift store job.  I would put that much effort in another job in a hospital, in a legal office,  in a non-profit organization. That I would put my energy into. I don’t even have transportation to get down to that thrift store."

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  City Hall at Night

  Mother: Imani S

  "I was on my way to the overtime job that I was doing when I got my food stamps cut off.  They had called me to work there for one day.  So, I was thinking to myself, “Well, if I go down here this one day, are they going cut my food stamps off?  I really didn’t know what to do.  At the time I was walking through there, it made me think, “Was I going to get cut off again?” What kind of programs can the City do to help us stay on the food stamp program when we do extra work?  I don’t think it’s fair for us to get reprimanded for doing something positive.  That’s why I chose that picture."

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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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  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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  Job search at the library

  Mother: Janelle R

  That's at the library. I go there to fill out job applications. I try to take the kids once in a while but mainly when they're in school that’s where I’m at.

   

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  Riding the bus

  Mother: Janelle R

  It has [been hard finding a job, and] everybody’s blaming it on the economy. But there’s plenty of jobs out there…  the reason why I know that I haven’t found a job yet is because I haven’t been able to go out [to job sites] because of my money situation. ‘Cause I know if I spend two dollars [on bus fare] I might need that for Pampers…

   

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  A day's tips

  Mother: Angelica R

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

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  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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  At work

  Mother: Marinette R

  "I found this security job on my own. I've always found jobs on my own because the welfare-to-work programs they send you to they never work for me. It’s kind of crazy because you sit there and they just tell you a bunch of stuff about how you have to have your hair. Like one day they put me to work there and they told me I needed a resume done. I don’t know how to mess with a computer so they told this lady, and she just puts me at the computer and leaves.She didn’t even help me. I got so stressed I left. They told me that if you leave and you never come back that you get sanctioned."

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  2 Tokens for One Week

  Mother: Joanna C

  "I take the bus to work. That’s why I had the picture of the two bus tokens. My sad, little tokens, because it was these two tokens that I had left for three more days of getting to work. Welfare said they couldn’t give me any more bus fare money because they already gave it to me. But of course, my priority is to feed my kids. I know that going to the job is going to pay me eventually, but I can’t let them starve all week long. So, I’m going to use that money to feed them first."

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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.'"