Tonight the Senate failed once again to pass an unemployment extension, 58 to 38. Senator's Snowe and Collins DID vote for it, thank you Senators! Senator's Nelson-NE and Brown-MA both voted against. A plague on both their houses! What's shocking to me is that the unemployment rate in Massachusetts is 9.1% and Mr. Brown just put 600+ thousand residents of his own State out on the street.
As most here know, I'm one of those long-term unemployed and I now will most certainly be evicted within the next few days due to these games. After spending the last 2 days downtown at Social Services seeking help to pay my June and July's rent, I've found out that as a single woman, there is little or no help me.
Let me share this last diary with all of you on what I actually found out while at Social Services.
First and foremost, I must thank those of you here that graciously offered to help financially, but I could not accept such because it's clear I've made some very bad decisions in this life that have led me to this point. I could not, in good conscience, accept help for my own failures. Thank you to the people that gave me some great suggestions and ideas for sources of public help that I was never aware of.
I would like to share briefly what I've found out through Social Services, et al. Summarily, if you are a single person in America, that has no physical disabilities, there's very little help, unless you are actually homeless and that help is few and far between.
Here's what I've learned.
I went down to their offices for the first time in my life and waited 2 hours in line where I explained my situation and was told that if I had an eviction notice, that Temporary Assistance, two lines over could help me. I was given tons of forms to fill out one of them being an Employment Application. I asked: "Will you hire me, would you like my resume and references?" She said "No, it's required of every applicant." I left and went home and filled out the 18 page form, plus the employment application.
I went back this morning and I waited for about 2 hours and was finally called up to a window where I was told I would be denied because of my "high rent" and suggested I go back to the first line I went to yesterday and apply for Food Stamps and Medicaid/medicare. I asked her if there were any other Agencies that might be able to help me, she said, "Yes, but you have to be denied by us first. Do you want to wait and get denied anyways?" I said, "Yes, if that is what I must do". She replied, "Well, the person who would have to see you isn't in yet and you'll have to wait but go back to the information line and tell them you'd like to apply for Cash Assistance and Food Stamps." I did as suggested and then sat down.
Another 2 hrs passed and while sitting and waiting, behind me was an ex-military mother with her son. She was talking to someone and I overheard the conversation. Both her and her son were homeless and staying in a Shelter after being accepted into Public Housing only to be told that it was full, they became homeless because of the "mistake".
I felt puny and small, fear welling up in my heart, if our society can't help one of our returning veterans with a child, where was I on this list?
I was finally called up to another window (there's 15 of them), where a woman said that I could get Expedited Food Stamps and possibly Medicaid/Medicare and maybe some cash assistance, that I had to return tomorrow at 8:15 am for an Employment Orientation Assessment. I asked her if she was the person that came in later this morning that I was waiting for and she said, "no, you should go back to the Temporary Assistance line". I did and waited another ½ hour.
Well, I finally spoke with the person who came in later. It was explained to me what Temporary Assistance was. It is a loan program that will pay up to $300 a month for up to 12 months, provided that your rent is not higher than $300 and you have some way of paying for other necessities such as food, electric and gas and the loan must be paid back.
As I was told previously, I was denied immediately because I have no job and my rent is $585.00. The woman who I spoke with said there was nothing they could do to help me, even though I have a pending eviction. I asked her where in Buffalo are there apartments that the rent is only $300 a month, she shrugged her shoulders. She did say they are trying to get the guidelines raised to $325. I asked again, "Where are these apartments for $325 a month? She didn't know.
The woman was compassionate and said there was nothing she could do to help me, she suggested I try three different Corporations/Agencies and handed me a paper with their phone numbers/contact information that I could call. Belmont Shelter Corporation, Rental Assistance Corporation of Buffalo, and/or Buffalo Urban League Incorporated.
Belmont is Section 8 Housing, as I found out and there is a list that I could "apply for and get on", the current waiting period for single person is, 6 to 8 yrs. This is where they will help find you housing in homes or apartment complexes and your rent is based on your income. Again, they couldn't help me, I have no income and I can't wait 6 to 8 yrs for placement. They suggested I call Catholic Charities and Crisis Services, and ask about the ECHO (Erie County Homeless Outreach), I did and was told because my address comes back for a Town that doesn't participate in the program, there is nothing they can do for me. Even if I did live in the City of Buffalo, the program funding ended 2 months ago.
They suggested I call CAO- Community Action Organization. I did and was told the same thing that Social Services said, that because I'm single and without income, they can't help me.
Rental Assistance Corporation of Buffalo, said the same thing as Belmont said, except that their waiting list was only 3½ yrs to 4 yrs. And finally I called the Buffalo Urban League of Buffalo, they too cannot help me, the same story I heard all afternoon.
In the end, after hours of waiting and tons of phone calls later, it seems that the only help a single person is to get in America is Food Stamps and possibly Medicare/Medicaid and maybe $169 a month in cash assistance. I really don't know how Food Stamps will help me when I become homeless, I will have no way of preparing meals without a stove or refrigerator. How does one stop from becoming homeless while waiting for 4, 6 or even 8 yrs for an opening in Public Housing?
My heart does go out to those other Americans that are going to find out as quickly as I have that there isn't help for us. Unemployment was and is our only help.
Now that the Republicans have refused once again to allow unemployment to be extended, millions of us will become less than a statistical number. We will no longer be counted in their weekly and monthly reports. Their reports will be "glowing" ( as I say that with contempt). I can see the headlines now, "America's unemployment rate drops for the 3rd, 4th or 5th time." Forget the millions that truly will be like me, no hope, no help and homeless in America.
May those Republicans and one "Democrat" remember that Karma is a bitch. She will wait decades, if she must, to extract her "great balancing of the scales."
May they know that I personally curse them: "May the evil they perpetuate return 10 times over. May their suffering be long, painful and torturous!"
Blessings and Peace. Thanks again everyone for your patience and support. Hope to see you all again! Time for me has run out.
Maybe someone else here can get the help they may desperately need, so I provided links to all the places I called.
UPDATE: Well, I got back this morning from Social Services and went through the Employment Assessment. I was told that to get any cash assistance, I must participate in an Accelerated Employment Search, that includes going to or applying for at least 15 positions a week, for 3 weeks, then and only then, will a case be opened for me. The entire process, I found out, is 45 days from the date you signed up.
So, in 43 days, I may or may not get $169.00. I must return tomorrow and go through a Certification Interview. Then next Tuesday, I must go to a completely different building and address called Erie County Works Center.
Because of a poster named Hanna, I have come to the reality that maybe "all hope isn't lost". She said:
Our "social service" system is currently organized on the predicate that people are basically self-centered and anti-social and that to get them to "behave," they have to be either threatened or bribed. If the threat of starvation doesn't keep them at work, then a tid-bit to tide them over until they come to their senses is tolerable. It works because the deprived have also been persuaded that's how it ought to be.
- cut-
Just don't call it charity. Charity hides social obligation behind an expectation of subservience. Better to be up front and assert that the benefits are to be paid back to someone else--later.
She is so right. This is exactly what I've always believed. My foolish spending on a night out or taking in a movie, not saving for that "what if" day. Those are the mistakes I'm guilty of. Mind you I rarely had more than $20 extra a week after my expenses, but if I had save that extra $20 over the last 28 yrs. I'd have quite a bundle to fall back on today. Foolish me.
It is because of her well spoken words that if I'm, we are to change this Country for the better, I must be part of that change. I cannot deceive myself any longer or let my pride stand in the way of those willing to help. The failures of our government have been revealed.
I stand before you all with a little more faith for tomorrow, more than I did, just 12 short hours ago.
If I can't accept the help of strangers, will strangers in the future, accept help from me? I think not.
Hanna, may Blessings and Peace follow you throughout your life. Thank you for helping me understand a truth that I was unable to see beyond. Societal pressures and/or conditioning effect all of us in the most minute ways. Sometimes it takes failure and someone's accurate analysis for us to finally see "all of it".
UPDATE #2:
BLESSINGS AND PEACE TO EVERYONE FOR THE HEARTFELT THOUGHTS, PRAYERS AND SUPPORT SENT TO ME TODAY.
I will never forget today July 1st 2010, a day that Americans showed me my own humanity and theirs. I pray that I will live long enough to be worthy of "paying it forward" in all your names.