Fantastic money for You.

sweetsoul Says:

1 December 2010 at 7:46 am.

Well John your contempt for welfare recipients is not uncommon. Most individuals outside of social services have an image of someone who lacks ambition and uses the system. I’m not disagreeing with you that there are certainly people that do indeed abuse the system. That, of course, is going to be a given in most things, for example insurance fraud. However, this does not mean that is the case for majority of individuals on the welfare system. Do you know how much welfare is in the City of Philadelphia for a single individual without any children? A Whopping $205 a month. Yes there were no typos in that sentence, $205 is for the entire month. To apply for welfare you have to wait almost the entire day to be called by a caseworker who is condescending and will most likely give you false information about how you don’t qualify and basically make you feel like crap all around. Once approved, the welfare systems has about a million regulations that make people with limited education jump through and when they don’t, they cut benefits randomly. This of course forces someone to go down to the office and again wait all day to speak to someone. Calling the welfare office is a joke. I give you the details of this to first point out that the system is anything but glamorized. It is degrading and frustrating and not to mention overwhelmed. Section 8 in the city of Philadelphia currently has a 2 year wait list. The wait list has been closed for years. So it’s not even two years until you obtain housing but 2 years before you’re even considered for housing. You may in fact get denied and you’ve waited on a two year wait list for nothing.

The second point I’d like to make is to introduce the idea of social capital. These communities lack any additional resources. They are isolated and have perhaps come from generational poverty and have no access to new ideas or resources. I want to give you an example. I once knew an individual that came exactly from that type of situation and decided he wanted to change his life around. When he entered the mainstream working culture, he felt very isolated because his coworkers were intimidated by him because he looked like a “gangster”. He was trying to change his life around but no one taught him how to dress differently or make non-verbal gestures like smile as you pass your coworker in the hallway. No one taught him how to open up a checking account and how to write a check (He was in his mid 20′s). We except the same great things from people but we forget to acknowledge the unequal distribution of tools…..