Women in Poverty - Tales from the Recession's Front Lines

Part: 6

Need Welfare in Bronx? Come Back Tomorrow, Maybe

By Anna Limontas-Salisbury

WeNews correspondent

Monday, July 26, 2010

Welfare caseloads have dropped steeply in recent decades, but some applicants in the South Bronx--one of the poorest communities in the country--say that's not a sign of winning the battle over poverty. It's about applicants feeling discouraged and disrespected in the waiting room.

welfare bronx ny BRONX, N.Y. (WOMENSENEWS)--Maria Rivera said the process of sitting in a state Human Resources Administration office here, waiting to apply for welfare, is so grueling that she has watched other applicants get frustrated and "wild out."

She's not one of those who has yelled at workers or thrown chairs, but said she understands the frustration.

In a recent phone interview, Rivera recalled days when she had little or no money to eat and was afraid to leave the office to get even a bag of chips, in case her name was called and she lost her turn.

"If you don't get seen the day before, they tell you to come back the next morning at 9," she said, referring to staff members. "But they arrive at 11 and go to lunch at 12," added the 49-year-old, a welfare justice worker with Mothers On the Move, a welfare advocacy group based in the South Bronx.

Rivera said she would cry and be frustrated by the process, and then have to be docile when being interviewed. Her interaction with a caseworker--not objective criteria concerning her income and employment--meant the difference between getting approved or not, she said.

"They discourage you with the wait," said Rivera, whose organization is focused on sharing information about welfare rules.

The percentage of eligible U.S. families receiving assistance from the federal program for low-income families has declined by half, from 84 percent in 1995 to 40 percent in 2005, Legal Momentum found in its June 2009 report "The Bitter Fruit of Welfare Reform." Legal Momentum is a New York-based legal advocacy organization. The group puts the current figure at less than 40 percent after factoring in the growth in eligible families since the start of the recession in December 2007.

Welfare Participants Dropped

The same report says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked states to examine closed cases of applicants for the program called TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Nearly 90 percent of the families eligible for the assistance are headed by women--either mothers or grandmothers.

Another 2009 study, entitled "The State of New York's Social Safety Net For Today's Times" and conducted by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, found that New York City families receiving federal assistance dropped by 24 percent between 2004 and 2007.

Champions of the controversial TANF overhaul of welfare, such as the CATO Institute and National Center for Policy Analysis, have interpreted the nationwide drop in welfare caseloads as a sign that single heads of households--in keeping with policymakers' vision--were finding work and becoming more financially self-sufficient.

Five current applicants in the South Bronx offered a different view in recent interviews. In this community, 55.3-57 percent of the population is supported by public assistance, according to the Department of City Planning in 2007, and poverty rates for women are 35 percent higher than for men, according to the Census Bureau of 2008. The applicants all described a system that simply discouraged eligible people from applying for services.

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