Free baby-- 1 1/2 yr old little girl-- any takers? and other tales from Arise

We've started monitoring DHCD at the Liberty St.welfare office in Springfield (and as the word is spreading, we're also hearing from families in Holyoke) and let me tell you-- if I had to put up with what many of these families are dealing with, I'd either be homicidal or suicidal.

We've been trying to help a single dad with eleven year old twins.  They've been living in a pop-up camper in a friend's back yard-- no running water, no electricity.  The first time the father went to DHCD, he was not given an application for shelter; he was told he was keeping his children in unsafe conditions and they were going to call the Dept. of Children and Families  and report him.  Of course he left, furious and terrified.  We told him to go back to DHCD the next day and insist on filling out an application.  I also called DCF in Boston to ask if they thought it was appropriate to be used as a threat against homeless families.  The father now has an appointment for Friday, but DHCD still had to include another threat, telling him he was just a heartbeat away from having a 51A (abuse and neglect) filed on him.

We finally got a mom and her three grandkids into shelter today, on the very day the sheriff was to physically remove them from their apartment. (I wrote about her in "The only thing we can do for you is walk you to the door." She and her grandkids, aged 2, 4 and 12, had gone back and forth between DHCD and the School Department four times, with DHCD insisting on a particular form they said the School Department had, and the School Dept. insisting they had no such form.  Finally, a call to the homeless liaison at the school dept. generated a screenshot of the child's enrollment which DHCD was willing to accept-- temporarily, until the grandmother proves she has legal custody. (Her daughter is incarcerated, and the notarized letter she'd given her mother had been good enough for the family to receive TAFDC benefits.)  When I asked my DHCD contact why the runaround, she said that without such strictness, anybody could walk into the welfare office and claim children as theirs when they really weren't.

"Yeah," I said, "but how often does that actually happen? Sounds like the kind of reasons used for tightening voter eligibility-- voter fraud-- when it scarcely exists."  She didn't disagree and gave me no examples that this kind of welfare fraud really happens..

Yesterday and today we've been hearing about-- and acting on behalf of-- a 26 year old mother and her four year old daughter who were found wandering in the middle of the night by the Holyoke Police.  The police were kind enough to let them stay at the station until morning, when they could drop her off at the Holyoke welfare office, where she was told by a worker,  "There are no shelters anymore."  She found her way to an ally (who shall remain nameless) and from there to the Mass Justice Dept.  They told her to go back to the office and ask for an application for shelter; she did, but DHCD refused to give her one.  So she was going to be sent back to the office once again, but now it was too late in the day and none of the advocates knew how to help her in time for tonight, so they suggested she spend the night in the Holyoke Hospital emergency room, and come back in the morning.  It was at that point that I put out a plea on our Facebook page, asking for mattresses and bedding.

I must say that everyone of these advocacies  has involved intense collaboration with the Mass Law Reform Institute, Mass Coalition for the Homeless and the Mass Justice Project.

Now to the free baby: yesterday was a long day but I was full of energy again after a meeting of our newest, two-month old committee, VOCAL-- Voicing Our Community Awareness Level.  We're dealing with criminal justice issues and the core group is fervent and strong.  However, I was definitely ready to go home when a friend of Arise, we'll call her Dorothy, stopped into the office.

Dorothy is not quite a member of Arise, because she is too busy completing her education in Early Childhood Education to take on the work, but we see her frequently during the school year, when she stops in to visit until it's time for her bus.

Dorothy is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.  Two months ago, she and her high school aged daughter  opened their home to an elderly man who became homeless after his apartment building was condemned.  It was going to be a temporary arrangement, but he fits in well, and contributes to the rent (which the landlord raised because there was an extra adult living in the apartment), so there's now a tinge of permanency in Dorothy's voice when she talks about him.

"I've got some new people at my house," she said.

"Really?  Who are they?"

"This 26 year old girl and her year and a half old baby-- a girl."

"Where did you find them?"

"I was in the bathroom at the bus station and the girl was in there-- she was crying hard-- and the baby was balanced on the edge of the sink, and I was worried about her, because her mother was crying so hard, and not paying attention, so we got talking, and she had nowhere to go, so I took them home."

"Wow, Dorothy, can I help?-- try to get her into shelter?"

"I don't know," she said.  "The girl may not stay-- she has a boyfriend in Alabama and she texts him all day.  But she might leave the baby behind with me...but I don't know how to take him and still finish school..." Her voice trails off.

"How did that come about?"

"The girl just said to me, 'Please take my baby.  Please.  I just can't take care of her anymore.'  We went down to court last week for me to get temporary custody and we have a court date in September....My school has daycare but she's too young."

"Maybe you can be his foster mother, get some financial help, pay for daycare; they do exist for chilrden that young."

"I took her-- the baby-- to church last week, just to see how she'd be, and she was good, quiet, and she waved at the other people and she waved at me....she's a sweet baby....my daughter says she'd like to have a sister..."

"You've fallen in love with the baby," I said.

"Yes.  I've fallen in love."

She told me more about the girl-- the mother-- which I won't write here, except to say that the girl has a dream that she will marry her boyfriend, and they will get a little house, and everything will be all right, and then she can come back for her baby.  (Want to count the broken hearts in this dream?) What I heard of her story answers at least part of this question: What could possibly make a woman so desperate that she would plead, to a person she scarcely knows, "Please take my baby.  I can't take care of her anymore?"

I haven't been able to get them out of my mind all day.  I left a message on Dorothy's phone tonight.

"Listen, I really want to talk to you about the girl and her baby.  Let me help.  Maybe we can all meet together.  Maybe there's something we can figure out.  Call me."

=================================================================

We had a training today for people willing to put in some time to monitor the DHCD offices.  We have another one scheduled for this Thursday at 5 pm. at our office, and will be scheduling more for next week.  We need more help if we and our communities are not to allow men, women and children to wander the streets.  Please call Arise at 413-734-4948 if you can give even an hour a week.  Thanks.

 Photo of Gari Melchers' Mother and Child from Who Wants to Know's photostream at Flickr.

'The only thing I can do for you is walk you to the door."

The last people I saw at Arise today were a woman and her adult nephew. 

For the last five years, she and her three children have been living with her father and taking care of him as he was dying, which, last month, he did..  She was never on his lease.  The landlord is evicting her, and Housing Court gave her ten days to leave.  Those ten days are now up, and she is waiting for the 48 hour notice from the sheriff.

Two weeks ago she went down to the Liberty St. welfare office and filled out an application for Emergency Assistance with the Dept. of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).  She went back to DHCD on Wednesday and a DHCD worker told her there was nothing they could do to help her.

"The only thing I can do for you," she said, "is walk you to the door."

Well, we're going to do what we can for her.  But here's what YOU can do: we're not done pressuring the Governor's office, our  legislators, or DHCD.  Please call BOTH the Boston and the local Governor's office: 617- 725-4005 or 784-1200.  Call your state senator and representative through the State House switchboard.  Ask them: is this what they intended when they voted these new rules through?  And call DHCD at 627-788-3610 and ask him to have some compassion in how his agency applies the new rules.

MORE YOU CAN DO: Help us monitor the DHCD office in Springfield (and Holyoke, if we can get enough people!) for homeless families being turned away from shelter.  We have two trainings scheduled: Monday, August 20, 11 am., and Wednesday, August 22, 5 pm.  It's not necessary to take the training to do the monitoring, but it's helpful. 

Here are some of the situations that our colleagues in Boston are reporting. I'll be very surprised if you aren't  gnashing your teeth by the end of this post.

In the past week, one very young mom with a 1-year old baby was denied shelter after exhausting her last double-up. She and her child slept for 2 nights in South Station. The first night a man approached them and offered them food. The next night he returned and said he was worried about them and would let them stay in his apartment. He then raped the young mother while the baby slept nearby. Even after the mother returned to DHCD with the rape kit results and proof of why she had good cause for losing a prior job (she had no child care and nowhere to stay), DHCD refused to look at the evidence, denied her shelter again, and told her that they would report her to DCF for neglecting her child by sleeping in South Station. In fact, we now know that DHCD actually did file a 51A on this poor woman. And even after Traveler’s Aid put her up for a few nights and contacted DHCD on her behalf, a high ranking DHCD official refused to place her and said: “she can appeal the denial and get a decision in 45 days.” Ongoing efforts are being made to force DHCD to place this family (which may or may not happen today), but whatever happens to this family now, the harm is done and there can be no denying that this is a predictable consequence of the policy that is being applied.

Other families are being approached outside DHCD offices by strangers who see them crying or distraught and offering to take them home. We are very concerned about the quid pro quos that may be imposed. In one double up, the mom was told she would have to “strip to stay.”

In another case, a woman who is 8 months pregnant and her baby’s father had no where to sleep but an old car of some friends that was parked on the street. The car recently was towed away, leaving them with nowhere to go. They applied for shelter and were told they would not be eligible until they brought in a ream of verifications, including the registration for the car that was towed (which of course is relevant to nothing and was in the car that was towed which no one had resources to retrieve). The pregnant woman in the late stages of her pregnancy has now been forced to sleep on the hard floor of an acquaintance’s house with no mattress and cannot stay there for long. She has given DHCD verification from medical providers that her pregnancy is high risk to which DHCD has responded: "they aren't my boss."

In addition to the fact of the denials and reflected in the above examples and others, families are systematically being treated horribly by DHCD. Families cry to us: “Do I really have to go back there to get shelter? Please don’t say I have to go back there.” They are forced to go to the office day after day, given long lists of verifications to bring back (some of which are not even relevant and many of which should not be required before placement), and then when they do bring them in are told DHCD is too busy to see them that day.

One woman who is a natural born U.S. Citizen and has never been in the Dominican Republic in her life was told by a DHCD worker: “Just go back to the Dominican Republic where you belong.”

One mother with several children who is hearing impaired and has just been diagnosed with cancer is another example. Based on reports from the City of Boston, she and her children have been staying temporarily with her mother in subsidized housing who has now been served with eviction papers, at least in part because their staying there violates the lease. She has spent multiple days at DHCD with her children without being served. She noticed many families who came in later than her being processed in front of her and so repeatedly went to the reception desk to ask if she had missed hearing her name called -- due to her hearing impairment. She was rudely told that if she came back to the desk again she would be forced to leave. Then she was told they did not have time to see her and she should come back yet another day. She begged them to place her because she could not go back to her mother’s because of the pending eviction and did not know where her children would sleep. She was told that it was her problem where her children were going to sleep and told in front of one of her children that DHCD would file a 51A against her to have DCF take her children if she did not return to her mother’s last night.  Traveler’s Aid ended up putting them up last night but obviously does not have the resources to replace the EA system for all these families.

In addition, Traveler’s Aid contacted DHCD counsel about the mother’s pending eviction, based on the understanding that DHCD had promised lawmakers that it would take steps to ensure that hosts in subsidized housing would not be evicted for taking in homeless families. But DHCD counsel informed Traveler’s Aid that no action would be taken to prevent eviction in individual cases.

Gov. Patrick, shame on you! Clothe our children!

When I was on welfare, I remember how much I looked forward to September.  That was the month that Massachusetts issued a $150 per child clothing allowance to help parents get kids ready for the school year.  No matter the bills still unpaid, I'd take that $150, pull out all my shopping skills, and dress my daughter as best I could.

That $150 allowance hasn't gone up in twenty-plus years, and of course it doesn't go as far as it once did-- even a secondhand pair of pants costs over five bucks at Goodwill-- but for families on public assistance, it lightens the load.

Last night I heard that Massachusetts' Governor Patrick plans to not pay the clothing allowance this year.

Yeah, I know, times are tight, just about everything (except health care) is being cut, but cutting from the bottom brings the whole weight of this economic disaster down on the poorest people's heads.  Local merchants should be unhappy about this, too.

The way I figure it, an additional 66,000 children in Massachusetts will be wearing last year's, now ill-fitting winter jacket, or shoes too small, or unmatched gloves.  I say additional because sixteen years of welfare reform has reduced the welfare caseload but not the number of kids living in poverty whose families don't receive TAFDC benefits..

I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, if we flood the Governor's office with phone calls, we can get him to reverse his decision. 

Starting Monday, start calling!
Governor Patrick's office:
Phone: 617.725.4005 or  888.870.7770 (in state)

Tell him NOT to make life any harder for Massachusetts' poorest kids.

Economic Dust Bowl: will we ever recover?

Denoris and Waleska help with the kids

Two of the families we've been advocating with this week have shelter for a while.  They were placed by DHCD and have thirty days to prove they're really "eligible" for shelter. So a call to Gerry McCafferty this week got the ball rolling; HAP helped out; and we got great advice from Mass Law Reform Institute and Western Mass. Legal Services.

Of course it was chaos in the office for three days.  Two young women from the summer jobs program at MCDI really helped out keeping the children amused-- the kids were often tired, hungry and stressed, so it was not an easy job.  Simone, our summer intern from McDuffy, helped out, also.

One problem in getting these families placed was that they both come from out of town.  Turns out that they both also have substantial ties to Springfield-- the dad in one family had been in Springfield for four months, looking for work; meanwhile his family was evicted from their apartment in Buffalo..

Now, as long as I've been doing this work, I've been aware of the urban legends about Massachusetts as a magnet for poor families: signs saying "Come to Massachusetts!" posted in NYC bus terminals and Puerto Rican welfare offices.  No one has ever seen the signs, of course, they've only heard of somebody who heard of somebody who has.

But there's a grain of truth in these stories, although Massachusetts is no more a target than any other state with large urban : poverty breaks the ties a poor family has to its community of origin.  I saw this first right here in Springfield.  Used to be that a family could be pretty close to destitute, renting not owning, and yet stay in the same neighborhood for years, building and maintaining ties with neighbors and local schools and businesses.  The loss of these networks comes at great cost to families that have little in the way of material resources.

We are seeing a migration  similar to the Great Dust Bowl, only now it is not soil that has blown away and farms  taken by the bank, but houses, apartments, jobs, stores, teachers, hospitals, social services-- you name it.  This morning's Boston Globe reports on potentially fatal cuts in day care programs for homeless families.  Mass Home Care says 2,400 low-income elderly will lose services that help them stay in their own home. Just as the widow's mite was so much a larger share of her wealth than what the rich man offered,  so these cuts and others like them are a huge share of what make survival possible.

I really don't know where all this is going-- the economy, the community, the individual lives of the poor.  I do know that  every time we have a "recovery," fewer of us get to recover.

Photo: Liz Bewsee

Monday morning: mothers from hell, bullying, public apologies, welfare motels

No stranger killed a six week old infant in a West Springfield motel; the three year-old sibling did it, when he and the infant were left alone for three hours by their mother.  That's what Hampden County District Attorney Bill Bennett announced on Friday, also saying it was likely that charges would be filed against the 21 year old mother, Erica Luce.

The "welfare motel" aspect of this tragedy is raising nearly as much ire as the death of the baby.

"The policy fails on all levels,. it fails for the taxpayers, if fails for the communities that are taking these families into their communities and at the same time its failing the families, it’s not placing them in a situation where they can succeed," said Representative Jim Welch.

Representative Jim Welch and Senator Stephen Buoniconti are pushing legislation to change the current system, hoping to change the way the homeless are housed, something they believe will help prevent the tragedies of late.

"Enough is enough we need to change this policy, this policy is a failed policy, " said Representative Jim Welch.  CBS3.

I'll have to spend at least part of today finding out what this new legislation is, but I'm worried.  Last year Sen. Buoniconti had a piece of "welfare reform" legislation that was punitive and showed a lack of understanding of conditions "on the ground" for poor families.  I've said before that the only thing worse than housing homeless families in motels is not to house them at all.

In Boston, the trial continues for a Hull woman accused of killing her four year old daughter with an overdose of psychotropic drugs.  Oddly, the doctor who prescribed these drugs for the child when she was only two years old, and who approved increasing the dosage, has not been indicted and has returned to her practice.

Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen wrote passionately this weekend about the bullying of Pheobe Prince, a South Hadley High freshman who killed herself five months after a specialist in bullying spoke at the high school to a mostly empty school auditorium.  Massachusetts lawmakers are now hurrying to get proposed anti-bullying legislation out of draft form and to the floor for a vote.  I wonder if it's crossed the mind of Springfield mother Sirdeaner L. Walker, whose 11 year old son killed himself last year after unrelenting bullying by other students at the New Leadership Charter School, that it's seemed to take the death of a white student from a middle class community to get the anti-bullying ball roll again?  It's certainly crossed mine.  The local blog Granby 01033, whose author teaches at a local high school, has a great description of how bullying can be tackled by school administrators-- but it takes the political will to do so.

This morning's Boston Globe reports that a public apology for years of dumping sewage from its cruise ship into Salem Harbor may be part of a plea agreement for the Rockmore Co. with federal prosecutors.  I didn't know this sort of thing took place, but apparently it won't be the first time in Massachusetts that those found guilty of violating environmental laws have had to put an apology in the newspaper or on a billboard.  According to the Globe, "some defense lawyers and scholars say the ads represent a throwback to the stocks and pillories of Colonial times and are designed less to educate the public and more to humiliate wrongdoers."

Would they rather be in jail instead of having to publicly humiliate themselves?  Sorry, if done fairly, I've got absolutely no problem with this.  How about you?

Photo from kpishdadi's photostream at Flickr.

If you intended to murder an infant

If you intended to murder an infant and you had roughly three hours in which to accomplish that deed, what method would you choose?

(I can barely stand to read these words as I write them.)

Would you decide to plunge the infant into cold water, set him naked in front of an air conditioner and then hope for the best?

I'm writing, of course, about the dreadful death of a six week old baby in West Springfield's Clarion Motel in the first hours after midnight on Sunday.

According to MassLive, West Springfield police received a call from the infant's mother, 22 year old Erica Luce, requesting assistance, about 3 am. The baby was taken by ambulance to Baystate Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

The mother told WWLP she had been visiting a next door neighbor while her three year old son and infant son slept, checking on them every fifteen minutes, but then she dropped off to sleep in her friend's room, awakening with a bad feeling. that she found her baby naked, wet and in front of the air conditioner.

So why am I writing this post?  I'm writing this in part because of a conversation my daughter and I had yesterday afternoon about this baby's death..  I'd said that something about the situation just didn't feel right,  but that I probably wouldn't write about it because I didn't know enough.  She'd said, Why not?  It doesn't stop you from writing about the cops when you think that something doesn't seem right.  And she was completely on target.


A few weeks ago, I wrote the following:  I know from experience how hard it can be to criticize one of "your own kind."  You already know there's a set of stereotypes that will instantly kick into play and which will go far beyond the specific person to castigate an entire group.  And you already know too much about how hard life can be for that kind of person, and that very  few people who haven't lived that life will be capable of  taking that into consideration.

Sure enough, much of the comments on the news story about this baby's death-- I don't even know the poor baby's name-- have been drawn from the stereotypes people have about welfare, single mothers and poverty.

So let me say some of what I know-- some from my own experience and some from years of observation-- no, that's not the right word, let's say thirty years of relationships with other poor, single mothers on welfare.

Tolstoy said that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way but I've found there's much that ties us together.  So I will generalize, knowing there are exceptions, and also leaving out whole categories of families on welfare such as those for whom relying on public assistance comes after a long fall from the working or middle class (and yes, there are a lot of them).  I am deliberately writing about the mothers on welfare that seem to most closely fit the stereotypes. 

Almost every girl and young woman who has an unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy without a solid plan for the future,  lacks a deep sense of self-worth.  We think we know what we're doing but we don't.  Still, most of us are ready to make the best of the situation, and most of us have grand plans for our children's lives, and how they'll be different from our own.

But it's hard, harder than we'd ever guess.  It shouldn't be impossible to raise children well in a single parent household and mostly the problem comes down to money.  The level of economic insecurity that comes with living on welfare is almost impossible to conceive-- housing always at risk, utility shut-offs looming, the constant and energy-sapping tension that comes from not knowing the face of the next disaster waiting around the corner.

Having more children usually makes things much worse.  But a second pregnancy comes along because we think we've found a relationship that will last until our children are grown up and can fend for themselves.  And nine times out of ten, we're wrong.

So getting a good job and getting off welfare is what makes the most sense, right?  But here's what I've seen in the last thirty years and every reader knows this is true: there are just fewer and fewer good jobs out there.  As a young mother, I worked in two factories; they are long closed.  I worked in two bookstores; now we don't have a single bookstore in the city.  I have aunts that worked at Forbes & Wallace selling gloves and hats and actually retired from there.

Still, the vast majority of mothers on welfare will eventually enter the workforce.  Welfare reform has "worked," if you want to call it that.  In 1997 Massachusetts had a 3.2% unemployment rate and a welfare caseload of  80,000; the monthly cash assistance for a family of three was $579.  Now, in January 2010,  we have an unemployment rate of 9.4% (or 17.2%, if you go by the "underemployment" rate) a welfare caseload of 50,500 families; the monthly cash assistance for a family of three is $618!   (That's less than a 7% increase in 13 years.)  Where is everyone, you might ask, if they're not on welfare and not working?  But maybe you really don't want to know about the kind of life that goes with the poverty they're experiencing.

Some mothers find alternatives to welfare because they have a child with a disability.  The vast majority of these disabilities are real  but there are also those parents will grasp at any straw to find a way to have income.  Maybe they're pushed by their kid's school into complicity with pathologizing their children.  Maybe they willingly and with relief accept some explanation for their children's behavior  because without that explanation, they feel like failures even more than they do already. 

Getting an education can really help a single mom leave welfare-- but childcare is hard to come by, transportation costs money, and a sick kid can throw everything into chaos.  And there still have to be jobs available at the end of the process.  Just how many cosmetologists do we need, anyway?.

There is no room here to make a summary of all the other ills that can affect poor families, and many of those ills, like domestic violence and addiction, cut across all class lines.  It's just if you're a poor single mom, it's like being hit when you're already down.

I can hear the voices now:  Throw them off!  Make them self-reliant!  But we're not exactly talking about the pioneer days, with wagon trains,  homesteading and subsistence farming.  We have to fit into the structure that already exists.

And this is where I feel like throwing up my hands because we are so completely going in the wrong direction.  According to Webster's, a society is " a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members."  Society has to work for most of us-- the regular people with regular lives who deserve to be able to get by.  Instead more and more of us are being left behind.

Some will call my attempt to place welfare moms in a larger context the same as making excuses for them. I would never deny the power of an individual to change her whole family's life for the better, because it happens every day.But why do we have to build our lives in the heart of a hurricane?

Photos from Gabba Gabba Hey!'s photostream at Flickr.,House Of Sims' photostream

What do a white mother of nine and a black suspect beaten by police have in common?

Springfield, Massachusetts events have hit the national news twice since the beginning of the new year.

First, 35 year old Tessa Savicki, Springfield mother of nine children, filed a lawsuit against Baystate Medical Center, two nurses and three doctors, claiming she was sterilized against her will while undergoing a cesarean section during the birth of her last child..

Then, on Thursday, news broke that the Springfield Police Department is investigating the beating of 28 year old Melvin Jones III by four Springfield police officers in late November, 2009.  The Springfield Republican  posted a videotape of the beating taken by an anonymous bystander.

Public reaction to both stories has been vocal and across the board politically, but much of the discourse can be place in one of two categories.

EITHER human rights apply to everyone equally OR  human rights should be applied differently depending on one's perception of the human beings involved.

When I say human rights, I also mean the laws and regulations that are supposed to support those rights.

Ms. Savicki has nine children, has never been married,  and has spent a good portion of her motherhood receiving public assistance of some kind.

Mr. Jones has a previous arrest record and recently finished an 18-month jail term for possession of crack cocaine.

According to some of the public, Ms. Savicki, should have been forcibly sterilized a long time ago, and Mr. Jones got what was coming to him.  Poor people shouldn't have children and young Black men shouldn't get addicted to drugs.  Therefore, whatever happens to them that violates their human rights is acceptable.

The problem with having a flexible standard for human rights is, of course, who gets to decide how those rights are applied.

Forcible sterilization of particular groups of people such as Jews, gypsies, and the physically and mentally handicapped were well-accepted during certain historical times and by certain governments.  Apparently much of the today's public finds forcible sterilization of welfare mothers quite appropriate-- after all, it's their tax dollars that support these mothers.  However, the forced sterilization of a mother of nine-- or nineteen!-- who's a good evangelical Christian in a two-parent family not accepting any public assistance would create a huge public uproar.

Many countries at different times have ceded their human rights to law enforcement, and though private opinion might hold otherwise, public opinion is often vociferously supportive.  So what if our phones are tapped, our email monitored, and our headscarves trigger a full body search?  Hey, if you haven't done anything wrong, what have you got to worry about? 

I have my own opinions, of course, about Ms. Savicki and Mr. Jones.  I think anyone who has nine children in this day and age, and who still wants more, is out of her mind-- whether she's on welfare or wealthy.  I also think Mr. Jones is clearly not benefiting by his relationship with illegal drugs.

Readers of this blog also know I support decriminalization of drugs and believe that a public health approach rather than a criminal justice approach would be more beneficial both to drug users and society. And I shook my head in dismay but not disbelief when Officer Jeffrey Asher's was revealed to be one of the four officers being investigated; I'm all too familiar with that name. 

But what I believe, with all my heart, is that human rights belong to everyone. You have the right to have children whether society approves or not, and you have the right to be treated humanely even if you have broken the law.  That so many of us are willing to allow these rights only for those of whom we approve is sad and repellent.  I can only hope that the majority of us continue to feel differently.

Photo from riacale's photostream at Flickr.

Politician versus Statesman

My first political memory is both vague and vivid: when Adlai Stevenson lost the presidential election to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, my mom cried-- and I, of course, being five years old and completely in sync with my mother's emotions, cried also. Thus I was imprinted early with the importance of politics.

When I was a kid my dad always made a great deal about the distinction between a politician and a statesman, and I was thinking a lot about those distinctions yesterday. I just looked up the definitions to refresh my mind.

• Statesman: a person who exhibits great wisdom and ability in directing the affairs of a government or in dealing with important public issues.
• Politician: a seeker or holder of public office, who is more concerned about winning favor or retaining power than about maintaining principles.

Yesterday Springfield City Councilor Bill Foley announced that after 28 years, he will not be seeking re-election this year.
Bill is an affable guy. I cannot remember him taking a controversial position on anything, ever. I do remember that he has always been a foe of ward representation. However, according to a Republican article yesterday, the fact that this year will be the first year in 50 years that we will be electing city councilors from each ward as well as at large has nothing to do with his not running. In a direct sense, this is probably true-- Bill's always been a top vote getter. But he joins four other incumbents who seem to show no interest in serving on city council under the new system.

Yesterday was also the day that I and two others met with State Senator Stephen Buoniconti to talk about a bill he submitted to the Legislature, An Act to promote responsible and effective transitional assistance. I will have a lot more to say about this meeting, and this legislation, in a later post.

Statesman or politician? Intent has everything to do with this distinction.

The urban legend goes like this:

The urban legend goes like this: back in the 70’s, the only decade in which I lived mostly away from Springfield, the welfare office was housed at the old King’s Plaza across from the Indian Motocycle building. Going there was a depressing experience—dingy, not enough chairs, not much real help available.

The waiting room was separated from the administrative offices by an old-fashioned wooden counter with one hinged section which could be lifted so someone could pass through.

One hot August day, a Black woman was standing at the counter filling out an application for welfare. She’d been given a yellow pencil and when she laid it down for a moment, it rolled to the other side of the counter and fell on the floor. The woman lifted up the counter, passed through, and squatted down to retrieve her pencil. The ubiquitous security guard stepped forward and put his hand on her arm to remove her. She fully straightened.

“Take your hand off my arm,” she said.

Exactly what happened next is unclear, but within five minutes , Springfield had a full-blown “welfare riot” on its hands—parking lot full of police, office full of angry, shouting women and crying children.

Apparently a welfare rights organization came from the riot but it was long gone by the time I returned to Springfield and was told this story.

I’d known that plaza well when I was a kid—I spent the first 8 years of my life on Willard Avenue. Maybe I knew Pete and Don’s Fruit Stand on the corner best of all—candy necklaces for a nickel!—but my dad bought auto parts and hardware at Western Auto and at least one of my Easter outfits came from King’s Department Store.

My childhood was rather sheltered. Years of rheumatic fever kept me housebound except in the summer, when I’d improve for a while. I couldn’t attend school and was taught at home by a kindly grayhaired tutor. I read everything I could get my hands on and spent much of my real life in Arabia, China, Ireland, Scotland and Sherwood Forest.

Never, never could I have known I would live most of my life in Springfield, spend time on welfare myself, and pick up the legacy of welfare rebellion to found a new welfare rights organization, Arise for Social Justice, now a poor people’s rights organization that’s lasted for twenty-four years.

In 1985 the long-empty Indian Motocycle factory was about to become the center of a controversy regarding its re-use: affordable housing or retail? (Sound familiar?) One part of the building had already been demolished and I often walked by the site while passing out flyers for Arise. It was on one of those trips that indulged a vision I knew would never come to be.

for the indian motocycle building

Plant this lot to clover. Never mind the bones

of rusted steel, green bits of broken glass

that shine like hidden water. They can be

the fossils for future history

and the struggling herbs be prophecy

for the generations who will wonder

what lies beneath the meadow thatch

where solstice dances lift the scent

of ancient summers.

Photo from Alki1's photostream at Flickr.

Don't let Mass. elected officials scapegoat poor people!

Looks like some politicians just can't pass up the opportunity to score a few points with the voting public even if it means eliminating a very tiny program that helps working families on public assistance. (Yes, it is all too easy in these low-wage days to have a job and still be eligible for public assistance.)

Thanks to the Drudge Report, a $400,000 program that has provided cars, a year's worth of auto insurance and a Triple A membership for 65 families who live in areas without public transportation may very well be scaled back or even eliminated by the Massachusetts Senate.

Gov. Patrick had planned to add a whopping $30,000 to the program this year.

We have a $5.4 billion state deficit (46 other states have budget deficits also) and this program is a target?

“Folks are calling for reform everywhere I go,” said Sen. Stephen J. Buoniconti (D-West Springfield). “We need to start taking a look at the welfare packages we give to folks, including the program in your article.” Boston Herald.

Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, wants to eliminate the AAA benefit, saying it flies in the face of common sense.

Oh, yeah?

Let's say you're a Springfield resident whose car breaks down on a city street and before you can get back to it, your car is ticketed by the Springfield police and towed by CJ's Towing, which holds the Springfield towing contract. You will pay an initial $250 fee for the ticket and towing, and then $20 a day for storage. When this happens to poor people, there's a good chance they'll never see their car again. (Hell, it's happened to me.) Compare this to the $63 a year cost of AAA.

I can guarantee you there's not a single Massachusetts legislator without towing insurance.

Brewer is also bothered by the fact that recipients who lose their jobs still get to keep the car, although all other benefits under the program cease. Won't that make it harder to get another job? How about if we limit it to people who have lost their jobs for cause?

Like it or not, we're definitely going to have to find a way to increase revenue in Massachusetts. But is there still waste in the budget? For sure (although NOT $5.4 billion dollars' worth). At times like these, I fantasize about being president in the movie Dave and bringing in my accountant friend to go through the budget line by line. As I recall, Dave did it in order to save funding for a homeless shelter.

There's a lot of pain for regular people in this year's proposed budget, and some of it isn't necessary. If you're a Massachusetts resident, call your senator and tell him or her not to scapegoat poor people. You can find senators' numbers here.

Photo from Patrick Docken's photostream at Flickr.

Bureaucratic barriers hide the real numbers of poor people

Sunday's New York Times reported on a curious phenomenon: poverty and unemployment are increasing, but somehow the welfare rolls are not going up-- the rate of enrollees from last year to this year is a statistically insignificant 0.3%. A few states had increases, a few had decreases, but it all balanced out.

The number of people receiving food stamps, however, went up in every single state, sometimes dramatically-- Florida's rate went up 16%.

So why the difference?

Since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act passed in 1996, public assistance, although partially funded by the federal government, is administered by each state with a great deal of latitude. The Food Stamp program, however, or SNAP as it is now called, is a straightforward federal program with a simple application form, and it doesn't cost the states a penny.

Therefore states have no reason to hide how many people are on the SNAP program, while much of public assistance, with its poor cousin homelessness, come directly from cash-poor state coffers.

Here in Massachusetts, public assistance administrators have a long history of keeping the family homeless rolls down by by creating regulations that disqualify families from shelter. If a family is not in a homeless shelter, that family can't be counted in the statistics.

This year, the line item that provides shelter for homeless families is facing a $3.36 million deficit. The Executive Office of Health and Human Services has figured out a way to reduce that deficit by $517,375 by instituting eight new regulations.

The advocacy organization Mass. Coalition for the Homeless has analyzed the impact of one of these regulations:

1. Denying eligibility to families who have been evicted or voluntarily left public or subsidized housing without good cause in the past three years. This represents a significant expansion of grounds for denial. Under current regulations, a family can be denied access to shelter if they have been evicted from public or subsidized housing for non-payment of rent, criminal activity, or destruction of property and that eviction is directly connected to the family’s current need for shelter.

Currently, this bar from shelter usually is in effect for no more than 12 months. It is unclear how broadly DTA will define good cause. In one estimate from DTA, this change would affect 20 families per month, although the actual number of children and families left without shelter may be much higher. In describing this change, DTA has said, “Families in this situation have already been granted and lost one of the most generous public benefits due to their own actions…Besides saving scarce EA resources for those who have not had this opportunity, this policy shift will be an incentive to those with subsidies to keep them.”

The Coalition does not believe that households purposely make themselves homeless knowing that they can obtain shelter or that housing authorities will change their behavior and work more closely with tenants to address problems before eviction because the family will be ineligible for this assistance. No child should be condemned to homelessness, and denied a basic safety net, for even a day, let alone three years.

Once again, poor people are in a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" situation.

During the Bush years, when the leaks in our economy had not yet become visible, there was no room for poor people to make a decent living. Now, when even the middle class is suffering, poor people are just supposed to suck it up-- times are tough for everyone, right?

I will be curious to see if the new stimulus plans will reach deeply enough to to offer hope for those at the economic bottom. But based on past history, I'm not holding my breath.

Mass Coalition for the Homeless needs legislative sponsors

MCH Bill Priorities, 2009-2010 Session

Please Contact Your Legislator and Ask Him or Her to Support Three Bills That Will Help Low Income Individuals and Families to Maintain and Obtain Housing

In January 2009, the Legislature initiated its 2009-2010 bill session. The Coalition has worked closely with several legislators to file three critical pieces of legislation to assist low income families and individuals:

• "An Act to Protect and Improve the Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children (EAEDC) Program" being filed in the House by Representatives Kathi-Anne Reinstein and Ruth Balser, and in the Senate by Senator Susan Tucker improves the safety net for destitute seniors, people with disabilities and homeless high school/vocational school students. This bill would:

1. Gradually raise the EAEDC grant until it matches the level of assistance provided to recipients of the state's Transitional Assistance to Families with Dependent Children program ($428/ month for a household of one) through regular Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs).

2. Restore EAEDC payments to full-time students attending a high school, vocational school or GED program to help them complete their educations.

3. Facilitate the movement of EAEDC recipients onto Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program by providing legal assistance and support with applications and appeals.

Fact Sheet on Bill.

• "An Act to Prevent Homelessness Among Recipients of Transitional Assistance" being filed in the House by Representative Denise Provost and in the Senate by Senators Pat Jehlen and Karen Spilka would establish a housing stability screening program at the Department of Transitional Assistance and would improve income benefits to TAFDC and EAEDC recipients experiencing homelessness. The bill would

1. Establish regular housing stability screenings with participants in DTA cash and nutritional assistance programs to assess if these families and individuals are at risk of homelessness.

2. Provide stabilization funds and services to link at-risk households to needed resources.

3. Increase income supports to TAFDC and EAEDC households experiencing homelessness, establishing escrow accounts with the money currently being deducted from their monthly grants.

Fact Sheet on Bill.

• "An Act to Prevent Homelessness by Removing Barriers to Subsidized Housing" being filed by Representative Carl Sciortino will complement ongoing efforts by the Commonwealth to prevent homelessness and reduce reliance on emergency shelter by removing unwarranted barriers to those who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness to accessing permanently affordable, subsidized housing.

Fact Sheet

Arise to welfare: we are NOT an agency

I usually spend my lunch break right in the office, either working or reading, but yesterday, I took a bunch of flyers down to the State St. welfare office-- Department of Transitional Assistance, that is. Arise is having a workshop on cash assistance programs on Friday, July 18, and as a member of Arise's Economic Justice Committee, I wanted to do my share in getting the word out.

I handed a few flyers to people leaving the DTA office, then decided to go inside and ask for permission to pass the flyers out in the waiting room. I approached the security guard to ask, and he said he'd have to check with the director-- could I hold on for a few minutes? A couple of minutes later, DTA Director Sandy Gosselin opened the door to the waiting room, extremely friendly, and asked me to come into the back offices with her, so I did.

She'd looked at the flyer and found some of the language objectionable and confrontational.

"I'd like to think our agencies have matured," she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was talking about DTA and Arise. "This event is still a while away; if you'd like to change the language and then come back with new flyers, that would be fine," she said.

The language she found objectionable? Two phrases:
'Tired of getting the runaround?" and "Let's tell them what we think!"

I thanked her very much, left and went back to the waiting room, where I said to the folks waiting, "I was just told I could not pass out these flyers inside, so if anyone wants one, just step outside the door--" which I did, and several people followed me.

Actually, there were two events listed on the flyer: Friday, July 18's workshop, taking place from 1 pm - 3 pm at our office, 467 State St., and a DTA "Listening session" taking place Wednesday the 16th, to which the community has been invited-- although I saw no announcement about it in the DTA office!

Here's that flyer: .

Hey, Recipient!

Have you been invited to this? Below the dotted line is an invitation from the state Department of Transitional Assistance.

DTA wants to “listen to the community.” Does that include the community of poor people receiving public assistance?

LET’S TELL THEM WHAT WE THINK!

FOR MORE INFO, CALL ARISE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AT 734-4948, 467 State St.
We are a poor people’s rights organization

===========================

The Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance wants to hear from you!

DTA is conducting a Community Listening Sessions Tour across the state.

You are invited to share with us:

♦ Feedback on how we’re doing in your community

♦ Your ideas for the future of our Department

♦ News, facts, and impressions about poverty, homelessness and hunger in your area.

We will visit Springfield Wednesday, July 16th

Join us at FutureWorks Career Center, 1 Federal Street, Building 103, Federal Room, Cafeteria Entrance, Springfield, MA, 1:30 p.m.—3:30 p.m.

To RSVP, please contact Nancy King at 617-348-8526

or email dta.sdcr@massmail.state.ma.us

Massachusetts fails former welfare recipients

Welfare benefits have never been high, but once upon a time, if you were really careful, you could raise your family with some dignity. Of course, in 1987, the year I mustered up my courage to get off welfare and take a job for the princely sum of $10,000 a year, the average apartment rent was $400, gasoline was under a dollar a gallon, and a dozen eggs only sixty-five cents. Welfare benefits then were 37% below the Federal poverty level, about what they are now. But things cost less in 1987.

But change was written on the wall. Reagan had launched his "Welfare Queen" propaganda and by the time Clinton came along the idea of welfare reform was in full swing. Not that welfare didn't need to be reformed, but what Clinton version we njicknamed "welfare deform."

In the thirteen years since welfare reform was instituted nationally, the number of welfare recipients in Massachusetts has fallen by more than half, to about 46,000. The Commonwealth has saved more than $680 million. But poverty levels have remained nearly unchanged-- 10.4% of Massachusetts residents lived in poverty in 1997, 9.7% in 2003 and 11.1% in 2005-- and less than half of the money Massachusetts saved has been put back into programs that help poor families survive. Meanwhile more and more working families, who'd like to stay off public assistance if they could, move closer to the poverty line.

Dan Ring at the Springfield Republican reports on some of welfare reforms failures identified in a new study released April 1 by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center .

My organization, Arise for Social Justice, is starting to look at what it would take to get a cost of living increase for welfare recipients. With two year time limits, benefits are set so low it very difficult to get ahead enough to get off welfare without calamity. We are already working with the Mass Coalition for the Homeless to get a COLA for recipients of EAEDC-- Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children-- a barebones program that provides basic monthly assistance to nearly 5,000 elders and 12,000 persons with disabilities. The EAEDC grant for recipients living in housing is currently $304/month; homeless recipients receive only $92/month;.it has not been increased in twenty years!

If you live in Massachusetts let your legislators know you support this increase-- $46 a month for housed people, $14 a month for the homeless. (I know, it doesn't make sense to me, either, but the idea is, if you live in a shelter you don't have to pay rent!) We won't eliminate poverty with this increase, but it might mean someone can afford a boarding house.

Who deserves more compassion? A puppy or a now-houseless mother and child?

Sometimes I just have to shake my head in disbelief.

A puppy that was thrown out a third floor window in Springfield on Thursday is reaping much sympathy and support from the community. The SPCA has set up a fund to raise the $5,000 needed for medical care. A warrant has been issued for the twenty year old man alleged to have done the deed. Everyone has been rightly horrified by the cruelty.

Meanwhile, the same week, a woman and her four year old son narrowly escaped death by carbon monoxide poisoning because of an inadequately vented furnace. Turns out the apartment, a converted garage, is illegal; the wiring, plumbing and other systems are also out of code. The building is owned by a city employee, Luis Colon.

The community response? It's her fault for choosing to live in an illegal apartment; she is the one who put her son's life (and her own) at risk. The landlord has been roundly criticized also, especially since he is a city employee. But the woman? Pregnant again-- probably no daddy around-- probably living on welfare-- probably getting Section 8. Even though the newspaper picture of the converted garage shows an apparently well-maintained, somewhat charming dwelling, somehow she should have known.

I've met a lot of people through the years of Arise who knowingly lived in illegal apartments. Either it was all they could afford or they feared retaliation, eviction and potential homelessness if they reported the apartment to Code Enforcement. I don't think that was this young woman's story.

I wonder: if the city had the funds to hire enough housing inspectors, and rigorously enforced the housing code, would they be prepared for the crisis in homelessness that would follow?

Ward Rep stand-outs begin

Late yesterday afternoon eight of us took our brand-new and really nifty ward representation signs and stood at the intersection of Main and Locust Sts for two hours. It was chilly but hardly unbearable. Today another group of us stood at the Boston Rd. and Parker St. intersection. Early this morning Liz dropped off signs at a meeting of the Ward Four Democratic Committee and about an hour later Arise's VP Don James reported seeing Ward Four folks standing out at Mason Sq. Tonight Liz is meeting up with Ward One folks to pass on more signs and fliers. So we've begun.

We're not taking anything for granted in this campaign. Just because ward rep won 58% in the 1997 election doesn't automatically mean a win this year is automatic. In 1997 we'd spent a whole summer doing outreach as we collected signatures for the ballot question; this year, ten years later, most people will have only heard about ward representation through the media: our federal lawsuit earlier this year, and then our battle to get Home Rule legislation for ward rep through the Legislature in time to be on this year's ballot. We know we have to mobilize all the resources we can to make personal connections with as many voters as possible.

When I think back to the beginning of Arise for Social Justice, four welfare mothers meeting together to figure out how to make our voices heard, I never could have predicted all the directions our movement for social justice would go in. Most of the time I feel like our work has barely begun.

Many of our struggles will outlive us. Ward representation is that rare example of significant institutional change that is actually winnable. I remind myself: keep breathing, keep working, keep believing.