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Erica S

Child(ren): Adore, Precious
Policies & Programs: Health Care, Laws, Transportation

"Come leave your world just for one week and live in my world.  Tell me how you're going to make it and survive-- how emotionally you're going to keep yourself together.   To day-by-day look at your kids and tell them, 'I don't have any money to take you to the store.'  Or, 'We're eating Oodles of Noodles today because the food stamps didn't last.'"

Click here to see Erica's photos featured in the Martha's Vineyard Gazette.

See Erica featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Erica is twenty-four and the mother of two daughters.  Her older daughter attends a private school on a scholarship because she was attacked by another child on the playground of her public school last year.  Erica received training through a welfare program as a medical assistant but was unable to find a job in that field. She recently found a job on her own but was called out of work on her first day with a call from her children’s daycare.  Apparently, because Erica had not found the job through an earn center, she had been re-classified and placed on a waiting list for child care—despite the fact that her children had already been receiving child care subsidies (CCIS) before Erica started working.  Luckily, Erica’s employer offered her a later start date but the loss of CCIS meant that Erica had to stay home for a month and a half when she could have been working.

Erica receives Food Stamps, but they don’t always last throughout the month.  She often has to feed herself and her children meals of instant noodles because that is all they can afford even though she knows it is unhealthy.  She lives in a neighborhood that she considers “the ‘hood” and is worn out from constantly worrying about the safety of her children and wondering how she is going to pay her bills.  Erica sees all of the abandoned buildings in her neighborhood and wonders about how different her neighborhood could be if those houses were used for affordable housing or programming like recreational centers. 

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