Cash Assistance

Welfare Sanctions

• 
  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.’”

• 
  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."