Public Help

12 Pages 2940 Words

“Was Welfare Started to help people in need or to help people become depended?

I am for helping my neighbor, but when does help turn into support? When does it become my responsibility to take care of your responsibility? My grandmother had 14 children 10 girls and four boys. Out of 10 girls seven of them is now on some form of public assistance. I have an aunt Vanita who is a single mother of five children struggling to survive while working 20-25 hours a week for about seven dollars per hour. Vanita tries to be a proud woman who brags about her self-reliance and her ability to take care of her children with out the help of welfare or child support. Vanita does not receive a monthly welfare check but she does require some assistance from the government.
One form of public assistance Vanita receives is from the Family Independency Agency (FIA), which administers the government food stamp program and Medicaid. The FIA provides Vanita with $ 475.00 a month worth of food vouchers. Of course Vanita and her children do not eat that many groceries in a month. Vanita sell part of her food stamps each month, buy expensive meats, or buy plenty of junk food for her children. A few years ago she was receiving so many vouchers each month she became the neighborhood candy lady.
The FIA also provides my aunt and cousins with medical insurance. The FIA also helps pay Vanita utilities. The FIA has a program that provides emergency relief for people on public assistance who are faced with non-payment shutoff notices on their phone, gas and electric bills. Sometimes Vanita will purposely not pay her utilities for a couple of months, this way they will bring her a disconnect notice. Once she gets the notice she run down to the public assistance building and they take care of everything. Vanita has a four-bed room two-bath house that she can afford through section 8. Now her monthly rent is $125.00 a month, but if she stops working for any rea...