My friend had asked that the kids and I be out of her house
by June 1st so for a couple of months I’d made dozens upon dozens of
phone calls to try to get my family a home before we had to be placed into a
shelter, but nobody would help me. I was a couple of days from my June 1st
deadline so I resigned myself to the fact that we had no other choice and I
called Social Services to find out what we had to do to be placed. I was told
that all we had to do was show up at the office and tell them we needed placement.
Okay, I could handle that but I had no place to put all of my belongings.
The lady on the phone told me that if I was going into a
homeless shelter Social Services would pay to store my belongings and she asked
me if I wanted to make arrangements to have them picked up. No! I’d like to
leave them on the street for anyone and everyone to pick and choose what they
want! I didn’t actually say that but I was certainly thinking it. So I made
arrangements with them to pick up our belongings from my friend’s house at 7:00
on the morning of June 1st and on the morning of May 31st
my kids and I got in our van and headed to the Department of Social Services in
Riverhead, NY.
I had the boys bring their video games and my daughter her
coloring books and crayons and off we went. We got there before the doors
opened and waited outside with everyone else who was there for whatever their
reasons. When we went into the building I stood on line and waited my turn to
tell someone we needed housing placement. I gave the girl my information and
was told to have a seat. So we did, and we waited…and waited…and waited…
That’s the way Social Services works. They make you wait
just because they can. That’s the way it feels, anyway. I’ve often said that if
the people at Social Services and the Department of Motor Vehicles got paid by
the number of people they served, rather than by the hour, we’d all get our
business taken care of in no time flat. Am I wrong? I don’t think so. But they
take their sweet time doing whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing without
a care in the world about those who need assistance.
Don’t get me wrong, not all government employees are
heartless and uncaring, and many of them are very efficient at their jobs. I
just always seem to get the workers who feel the need to stop and chat with a
co-worker or take a quick break or have to tidy their work area before they can
assist me. Whatever, it happens. So the kids and I finally get called to the
back to meet with a caseworker who took loads of information from me; the exact
same information they took from me months prior when I applied for food stamps.
Nothing had changed yet the caseworker claimed he needed to get it again. I
asked why. The way I was thinking, it was already in their computer. Pull up my
file and get the shit before you call me back there.
His answer was that food stamps was a different department
from cash assistance so he had no access to my information. Are you fucking
kidding me? They’re all in the same building, working on the same computer
network but he couldn’t pull up my file. Then I asked him why I needed to apply
for cash assistance. I was getting child support so I didn’t need the cash
assistance. And this is where I got angry. Why? I’ll tell you why. He told me
that in order to be placed in a shelter I had to have an open cash assistance
case. And from previous experience with Social Services in Missouri I knew that
meant that they’d give me cash and take my child support in return. No shit!
They were going to give me somewhere along the lines of
$400+ a month in cash assistance and take $925 a month from me. Another why?
Because you can’t receive cash assistance and child support at the same time.
See, cash assistance has to be paid back, food stamps don’t. So they give me
cash and I pay them back with my child support. Does that make sense to you? I
can understand if they wanted to take back the $400+ from my child support and
leave me with the rest but it doesn’t work that way. That’s just one of the
ways the government screws people. I kid you not.
So I did what I had to do and gave him all the info he
needed to sign me up for cash assistance. I didn’t like it but I had no other
choice in the matter at the time. When I come back tomorrow I’ll tell about the
next application I had to complete – to obtain child support that I was already
getting. I know!! It doesn’t make any sense but I’ll explain in further detail,
I promise.
Until next time…peace to all.
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