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Lemme tell you about my experience as a young single mother on welfare and foodstamps- White, from a middle class family, well-educated with numerous extra curricular activities in HS
Got pregnant when "well-educated" and high test scores don't translate into "comprehensive knowledge about reproduction and birth control". Left HS because of hyperemesis gravidarum (and because the school instantly wrote me off). The dad bailed, leaving me on my own.
When I got my GED, people kept freaking out at my pre-test scores. I got asked "Why are you even *here*?!" by a proctor-Umm... because the HS booted me out as an embarrassment and the "teen mom" classes were all remedial?
A couple years pass; I got a job, got an apartment on housing assistance. Signed up for welfare and foodstamps...
And was treated like *utter* crap every time I had to interact with the system.
And was treated like *utter* crap every time I had to interact with the system.
First assumption was that having been a "pregnant HS drop out" meant that I was functionally illiterate and stupid. People talked to me like I was 3. Assumed that the reason I was taking time to read papers before signing was because I couldn't read.
When I entered an education program to get a degree at the local college, they kept trying to talk me out of graphic design. "That'll be very technical. Wouldn't you rather go into something simpler?"
Second assumption was that I had access to unlimited, drop of the hat child care. They would get *snarky* if I had the toddler with me. "Wasn't there someplace he could go? These things take longer if you bring your child!"
But if you *ask* about child care funding, there's a laundry list of why *you* specifically won't qualify (even if you do the things on the last list they game you...)
But most of all it was the constant being talked down to, the condescending tones, the "What do *you* want, you lazy bum" mentality... but here's the thing... I had a secret weapon...
See, my *mom* worked for a federal funded agency, one that had to interact with the welfare system regularly, and she'd heard *all* the horror stories working with families who would tie themselves in knots to *avoid* getting services because of the treatment.
So there I am in the office one day, and I have just requested that I be allowed to see my file, as was my legal right. First comes the deflection: "We can't do that." Yes, you can, it's the law (and I cited the statute...I come prepared!)
Next comes the delay and misdirection: "Oh well, you can just have your care worker look it up for you, she can explain anything..." No, I have a legal right to look at my whole file with my own two eyes.
Next comes the anger: "I don't know why you're being difficult about this- pulling your file is going to make extra work for your case manager, and she has more than just you to deal with!"
This whole time, my mother is sitting there, quietly letting me handle this... At this point she looks at the person and says "I am a XX for YY, and now I understand why our clients are resistant to receiving services from you. I am going to need to meet with my supervisor..."
Whoooboy did the attitude change after that (but just for that appointment, without my mom there, they went back to being jerks). I got my file, found the discrepancy they were trying to penalize me money for, and went on with my life.
Now, an important thing to consider is that *most social workers have a positive intention*. Very few people go into social work to be asshats. But the system itself grinds the workers down- heavy case loads, not enough funding for services anywhere, red tape like a parade.
But between the cultural message that welfare people are lazy bums leeching the system, and bureaucracy that grinds down souls, plus the perpetual sense of *despair* hanging over these places because they *don't* really help much... it just sucks the life right out of everyone.
And this is all *independent* from the constant social judgement from random human beings. I once got yelled at for buying a nice steak on food stamps, because how dare I... even though I could make it stretch further than an equivalent cost of cheap burger.
