In December 1990, the two bishops of Alabama issued a pastoral letter on poverty in Alabama. The Archdiocesan Peace and Justice Commission, chaired at the time by Jerry Darring, had worked closely with the Commission of the diocese of Birmingham to gather data. In the Spring of 1989, they had gone all over the state listening to the stories of low-income Alabamians, and many of those hearings were recorded on tape. Here are some of those stories.
John, MontgomeryJohn, 37, is a Vietnam vet, having served two tours of duty there and been wounded twice. He was exposed to agent orange while in Vietnam. He has had children stillborn and born with multiple birth defects. In 1987 he had a heart attack, and in treating him they found cancer, which is now diagnosed as terminal. The VA has refused to accept a connection between the agent orange and his condition, so he gets no disability from them. He does, however, receive $442 a month on Social Security disability, from which $31 is automatically taken out for Medicare. He spends $25 a week on food, even though he is supposed to be on a special diet. He cannot afford a phone or a car. He has contacted the food stamp people, and it will be thirty days before they can see him. His wife has left him: “She just doesn’t want to watch me die.”
Rebecca, Birmingham
Rebecca is the single parent of two children, a 9-year old and a 9-month old. She lost her job when she got pregnant this last time, and lived on the streets for two and a half months. Then she lived in a shelter for 14 months until she got an apartment on section 8. While she was pregnant no one would hire her, and after she had the baby she could not go out looking for work because there was no one to take care of the infant. She has managed to find jobs, however, and at one time had three jobs simultaneously. She lost two of them because of child care problems. She worked in a fast-food store, working every day from 9 to 3 and 4:30 to closing, then walking home almost two hours in the middle of the night. Child care cost her $70 a week, because that is how many hours she was gone every day. She now works part time at a laundry. Since leaving the shelter Rebecca has learned that she has AIDS. She lost her two restaurant jobs because of this, and all her former friends have distanced themselves from her. She is starting to think of what to do with her children when the time comes, but she doesn’t know what to do: her friends have cut her off, what family she has is of no assistance, and she doesn’t want to place them in foster homes because she herself was raised in foster homes and she doesn’t want that for her children.
Daniel, Mobile
Daniel has been married for over 11 years. He and his wife have two children, ages 8 and 9. In 1986 he started a business with an investor and a partner, producing software for the legal profession. The investor pulled out, the business collapsed, and Daniel lost everything. He tried taking his family to Florida, which is where he is from, but they only got to Mobile before running out of money. Daniel’s family stayed with his partner’s relatives for a few weeks while he looked for work, and then she and the children moved into the Salvation Army Women and Children’s residence. Daniel lived in his car through the winter of 1987-88. She found work at a local department store. He was unsuccessful, having to take sponge baths in gas station restrooms and wearing the clothes he had slept in. In April he was hired temporarily as a warehouseman. This was dirty work, but he was able to move into a motel offered him at a special rate by a friend, so he could clean up every night. He was not eligible for food stamps because he did not have a permanent residence with cooking facilities. When the job ran out, it was back to living in the car. Twice a week he would walk seven miles to spend an hour and a half with his wife and children, then walk seven miles back to the car. He also walked to job interviews, but who would employ him? No bath in three days or three weeks, no address or telephone, dirty and unironed clothes, seemingly insurmountable problems with transportation and child care! Daniel says that when he was running his business, he would never have considered hiring such a person. The children attended four different schools during this period. Daniel remembers with pain watching them cry the first time they realized that their daddy was sleeping in the car on these cold nights. They applied for low-income housing at one point. The manager bragged about how he had moved the “coloreds” into the back of the complex, and had the whites in the front. Daniel filled out the government forms, which had him give basic facts about himself and his wife, including the fact that she is black. He was notified later that they were turned down for too little income, even though she was making over 150% of minimum wage and most of the people in the complex earned minimum wage. His wife has now been at the department store for two years, and is in the top ten percent of salespersons. Daniel is a Dean’s List student at the University of South Alabama, majoring in computer science. They live in university housing.
Sarah Jane, Dallas County near Selma
Sarah Jane introduced herself as a 56-year old who finished seventh grade. She lives in an old family house that is rotting away: her daughter fell through the floor and had to be sawed out. Her daughters, ages 21 and 23, have been living with her, but they are moving out. Sarah Jane has no income other than food stamps. She used to get ADC money when she kept her two grandchildren, but they are gone now. Her daughters have been paying for the electricity, but there will be no money for that now. The house has no running water. Sarah Jane needs medical care but receives none.
Gina, Decatur
Gina is a single parent with two children, ages 12 and 3. She gets child support of $45 every two weeks, which makes her not eligible for ADC. She works about 22 hours a week, earning an average of $110 a week. She used to have her baby in day care, costing $33 a week. Now the child is in Head Start, so Gina can only work from 8:45 to 1:45. She gets food stamps, but they go up and down, according to how much she earns in a given month. She pays $150 a month rent, and cab fare to work (which is the only way she can get there) costs $15 a week. She went to the health center in January, and when she returned in March they said that they could not help her again until the fall. Gina said that “the only time I can buy anything new is when I get my income tax refund in the spring.”
Sandra, Birmingham
Sandra married young, and lives alone now with her four children and one grandchild. Her husband has been in jail for a year. In 1982 she hurt her back on the job, and this put her out of work for two years. During this time she was forced out of her house and she moved into a project. Then she went through rehabilitation, and was helped to get a job. They forced her, however, to do work she shouldn’t do, and she did it as long as she could. She moved out of the project, but into a dangerous neighborhood that keeps her awake at night worrying. She has been on ADC for seven months and gets food stamps. She wants to work, she says, but no one will hire her. She is weary now and says that she has just about given up.
Cathy, Huntsville
Cathy is a single mother of six children, three teenagers and three pre-schoolers. Two years ago her 2-year old son was hit by a car and critically injured. Cathy was in the process of getting hospitalization, but it was not in effect yet. The medical bills ended up totaling $30,000, and the hospital has begun pressuring her for the money. Cathy went to work because, as she says, “I wanted my children to see me as a role model, that I don’t rely on the government to support me.” She worked 60 hours a week the first six months in order to help her chances of promotion. Her biggest problem is day care. She pays $84 a week for two preschoolers, $20 a week for after-school care for the one in kindergarten, and $20-30 a week for a friend to keep her older children when they come home from school. This means that Cathy pays about $520 a month for child care, which is more than half of the $1,000 a month she earns at work.
Dolores, Selma
Dolores’ husband has been on Social Security disability for years due to multiple medical problems. On his way home from work in 1969 he became suddenly blind. The local physician couldn’t find the cause of this problem, and since then he has developed multiple sclerosis, a ruptured colon, a stroke, and a broken leg. He has had to be taken to a doctor in Birmingham, and has been in and out of the hospital five times just in the last year. Medical bills are huge, and the hospital alone is owed $42,000. Medicare is not covering all of these expenses, and Dolores pays a little each month on these bills. Their income is $433 a month from Social Security disability. Her 27-year old son lives with them. He had a construction job up to two years ago when he was injured. Now he cannot work. He tried to help supplement the family income by cutting lawns, but because of this their food stamps were cut.
Nathaniel, Mobile
Nathaniel is 39 years old, homeless and unemployed. After high school he worked in the job corps, and then served in the Air Force three years. He returned home and worked at several jobs. He went through some difficult family problems around 1979-80, and has struggled all during the 1980s with finding work. For the last four years he has been living at Salvation Army, which allows him to stay there but requires that he leave every morning at five. He has taken courses at Bishop State Junior College, and he is currently in a job training program at Spring Hill College, studying sales and retail.
Rosemary, Russellville
Rosemary is a single parent with two teenage children. She lives on $168 a month from ADC, and she receives food stamps. I’d love to work, she says, but I can’t find a job. One problem is that she presents a bad profile to prospective employers: besides being on federal assistance, she was in jail for three years. She feels that no one wants to give her a chance to show that she is responsible and capable of doing a good job. Another problem is that she can’t afford to take the jobs she is offered. All of the job offers have been either for part time work or for minimum wage salary, and in either case she would not be able to survive. “You ask if they can help you out, if you can keep Medicare or food stamps for a while until you can get on your feet, but no, they jerk it right out from under you.
Jeff, Montgomery
Jeff, 30, lives with his wife and 4-year old child. Both he and his wife are high school graduates. Up until a couple of years ago, they both worked, she at minimum wage, he at $6 an hour. Their life was okay, and they were able to pay all their bills. Then she was laid off and they started sinking financially. They sought help, but were told he earned too much. Soon the collection agencies were on their backs, and they were forced into bankruptcy. He now earns $7 an hour. She still does not work. They live in a trailer, paying less than $200 a month rent, but he has to travel 16 miles to work and they have no health insurance.
Joan, Birmingham
Joan is a 38-year-old high school graduate. She has 15 years experience in the construction business, and for 10 years was the office manager for large construction companies. She earned $29,500 in 1986. In November 1988 she was laid off, and three days later her husband was laid off. They applied for food stamps and Joan had this to say about the experience: “Whatever pride I had left at that point was stripped at the food stamp office. After I walked out of the food stamp office, I cried because I had been treated so demeaningly.” The food stamp office required the couple to attend the Target Success program; otherwise they would lose the food stamps. It was then decided that she was trainable and would have to go through the JTPA program for a 9-month course in the ‘clerical computer cluster.’ They will pay her $2 an hour for doing this, but Joan does not understand: “All I need is a little computer training. I don’t need 9 months of clerical training. I will use up your tax dollars for nine months for some-thing I already know to be productive in something I already know.” She does have a part-time job now, but her husband, who is a recovered alcoholic and drug addict and has been sober for two years, is still unemployed.
James, Selma
James is 38, married, with two children, a 14-year old asthmatic son and a 6-year old daughter. He has many health problems and at one time was taking fourteen kinds of medication. His social security disability check is $688 a month. Their rent is $175 and their medical bills run as high as $145 a month. They tried to help themselves by collecting tin cans, but found themselves cut off from food stamps. The family can’t get Section 8 housing because the regulations require them to have a 3-bedroom home and there aren’t any available. James says he “lives under fear” and there is too much red tape wherever he turns for help.
Alice, Mobile
Alice was raised in the country, north of Butler. She finished sixth grade, and had had four children by the time she went on welfare in 1968, when she was about 20. That was when she came to Mobile, and the first apartment she had was a two-room deal in which her son slept with her and the three girls slept on a sofa. Alice stayed on welfare for seventeen years. She would get a minimum-wage job, but since both she and a child had asthma, she could not afford to lose the Medicaid benefits, and she would decide to stay on welfare. “I felt trapped,” she says, “it really hurt.” You get a low-paying job, she points out, and you lose welfare, food stamp coverage, and Medicaid coverage, plus you pay transportation. She has always wanted to work, but with little education and the burden of the children, it never worked out. “Every time I got a nickel, I spent it looking for a job.” Today Alice goes to Catholic Social Services as a volunteer in their sewing room. It’s like going to work, she says.
Single mother, Baldwin County
She is the mother of three children, ages 7, 6, and 4. She lives on $147 a month ADC plus food stamps. Medicaid helps with the medical bills, and her boyfriend helps sometimes. Her rent is $80 a month and she must pay light, water, and gas bills. She would like to work, and says if she could change anything, she would have a job and earn her own money. “It makes you feel unhealthy, always waiting for a handout.” She was put in special ed in fifth grade, and says they spent most of the time playing sports and going on field trips. She never learned to read and write. In eighth grade she left school because she was pregnant and all the kids made fun of her. Now her 7-year old is in special ed, and she would like to get her into regular classes. The daughter wants to read, but her mother can’t help her with the big words. The mother says she would return to school if she could. She feels that her life is being controlled by others. Her boyfriend cannot live with her because she would lose welfare if he did.
Dorothy, Birmingham
Dorothy has four children, one of whom lives with her sister because it is very sickly and needs attention that Dorothy is not in a position to give. Dorothy had major surgery costing $18,000. She was on ADC and Medicaid at the time, but they failed to file for the bill and it was never paid. A year ago her apartment burned up. She applied to the housing authority for assistance, but they refused her because of the unpaid medical bill. “Me and my children have been drifting for a year,” she said. She has been looking for work but can’t find any. Her unemployment ran out in January, and between January and March her only income was $190 in food stamps. She hopes to be able to go for training in word processing.
Phoebe, Alabaster
When Phoebe divorced her husband, she was left with a 2-year-old and an 11-month-old. Her husband had not wanted her to work, so she was left with no source of income. She moved in with her brother, who lived in a trailer with his wife and three children. She stayed in those difficult circumstances for 7 months, all the time with no income. Then she moved into a 3-bedroom apartment in a project, but was still without any income. She had been injured in a car accident, so there were many things she could not do. Eventually she got a job driving, and she earns $3.75 an hour. She used to get food stamps, but does no longer. Day care has been a problem. One babysitter abused her child. She now spends $75 every two weeks for child care. She is supposed to get child support, but receives it only sporadically.
Single parent, Gadsden
She married and had two girls by the time she divorced. She raised them by working twelve hours a day. Then she married again and again divorced with two more girls. This time she had to go on ADC, where she remained for seven years. She says that the problems with living on ADC were tremendous. One daughter has a heart condition and muscle control problems, but they could get no help for her. The mother drew $118 and would often spend it all on utilities. She wanted to go to school, but was told she would lose ADC and medical coverage. People made fun of their clothes, and the children were called welfare brats.
Margaret, Birmingham
Margaret lives with her husband and four children. Several years ago they left south Georgia to look for work in California, where they had family. He had been a cook with 30 years experience in the restaurant business. Finding nothing in California, they worked their way back across the country to Florida, and still could find nothing. Margaret says that restaurants want either young people they can hire cheaply or college graduates they can train for management. They eventually ended up in Birmingham, but after their first two nights in a motel, they ran out of money and landed in the Salvation Army shelter. They were homeless for a while, but they haven’t been homeless for the last year and a half. Still, it has not been easy. Once Margaret quit a job so that she could get her final paycheck and pay the light bill before they had the power cut off. Her husband works now, but not in the restaurant business. Her oldest daughter has lost two years of school while they looked for work and were homeless. Margaret’s family was on food stamps at one point, but they were cut off because she did not receive the monthly reporting form in the mail and therefore did not submit it. On another occasion the State Employment Office filed a report that her husband worked in November 1987, and even though this wasn’t true, they cut her off from food stamps. Now she says she will never go back to get food stamps, no matter what. She says: “It’s too degrading, the worst attitude of anywhere I’ve seen.”
Bill, Dallas County
Bill moved to Dallas County from Ohio in 1969, and became one of the largest soybean farmers in the area. He became a national board member of the American Soybean Association. By around 1980 he owned 1200 acres, farmed 5000, had a weekly payroll of some $2,000, and was worth about a quarter million dollars. Today he owns 290 acres, farms 1000, has a weekly payroll of about $200, and is worth little if anything. Ten new houses were built on farms at the same time as his, and he is the only farmer still living in his house. He managed to hold on to his house by declaring bankruptcy
Nancy, Atmore
Nancy was married for ten years to her first husband, who was killed in Vietnam. She has been married fifteen years to her second husband, and they have three children ages 13, 12, and 10. The oldest child is mentally disabled and subject to seizures. The husband works four days a week earning $5 an hour (or about $8,000 a year). This is too much for them to qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, or legal aid. They live in a house owned by her mother. They have hospitalization, but only for surgery; they can’t afford more.
Mary, Mobile
Mary is 58, and has lived alone since 1966. She has always managed to take care of herself, but things have gotten very bad in the last three years. The cause, she says, is low income and high rent. In February of last year she lost her job, and she managed to pay the $95 rent each month until June, when she was three weeks late in making the payment. Then on July 12 the sheriff showed up with two trucks, and when Mary got hysterical, they handcuffed her and brought her to jail. She returned home the next day to find all her furniture piled next to the street. She applied for low-income housing, but was told that she would have to be 62 or over, or with children, or disabled. She lives now in a $50 a month house that is falling apart and sinking. She has no job, no income, and has not paid the utilities in two months. She has not been able to get food stamps because they had problems with the fact that she left a job, even though she explained that it was because of a transportation problem. One of the panel members who heard Mary tell her story said that she had worked with Mary as a waitress and that Mary is a very hard worker.
Archie, Montgomery
Archie, 76, is blind and lives alone in a small apartment. He did not complete elementary school, and spent fifteen years in jail before his conviction was overturned. He lives on $400 a month, from which he pays rent, utilities, and food. He applied for food stamps and has been allowed $10 a month. He says he is grateful for his apartment, but wishes he had a dresser instead of having to live out of a suitcase.
Gene, Huntsville
Gene is 56. He philosophizes about his life story: “The problem with being on top is that the fall to the bottom can be traumatic.” He had been employed by GE and NASA, and earned $105,000 a year. His four children all became doctors. Then Gene got cancer, which has traveled all around his body and caused him to lose 139 pounds, and his $250,000 medical coverage was used up. Gene lost his job, all his money, his house, his car, and he has been abandoned by his family and his old friends. He has to beg now to be able to buy the $250 of medicine he needs every month. No one will hire him, so he does volunteer work for the St. Vincent de Paul Society, visiting hurting people and helping and encouraging them.
Janice, Mobile
Janice is 39, the divorced mother of three children, ages 19, 10, and 6. She comes from an educated family, and is herself a graduate of Bishop College in Dallas, Texas. She was working in social services in Atlanta, but when she was laid off she came to Mobile. She could not find employment and ended up on ADC, food stamps, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing. Her life became a constant struggle to get out of that situation. She remembers taking one job washing dishes in a restaurant, cleaning out the toilets, doing whatever, and being paid less than minimum wage. “You get to the point after you try so hard, it does something to your self-esteem. You say, well, darn, what’s wrong with me?” If affected all her family, and her son even attempted suicide. Today Janice is working, earning about $600 a month, but paying about $180 a month for medical insurance.
Jathelma, Birmingham
Jathelma lives with her five grandchildren. They have been receiving ADC and food stamps for the last year. She has been on disability for the last fourteen years. They live in a project, and she must pay 30% of her gross income for rent. One child receives Social Security money from his father, and she was told that because of that she would no longer qualify for ADC or food stamps.
Vivian, Selma
Vivian is a head-of-household mother of three children, the oldest of whom is 12. She has been receiving $147 a month on ADC, and was covered by Medicaid. But then she got a part time job and they cut her off from Medicaid. Soon after that she was rushed to the emergency room, and they discovered stones in both her kidneys. She underwent treatment, and incurred large medical bills. Now she is being hounded by a collection agency, and they are threatening to have her wages garnished. She is supposed to be on some medication, but she can’t afford it.
Cathy, Tuscaloosa
Cathy is a single parent with three children. She lives with her parents, and receives $147 a month from welfare. Her first husband was located after six years and ordered to pay $100 a month for his child, which he stopped after five months. Her second husband was ordered to pay $400 a month for his two children, but has never paid anything. Cathy has little hope of making enough to live on without some kind of help. At first she was not able to get food stamps because she lived with her family, but last month she received her first allotment of $287 in food stamps. To get this she had to sign forms saying she would cook separately from them, and that she and her children would eat at a different time from her parents. Medicaid will pay for twelve doctor visits and three emergency room visits a year; after that she has to pay the full amount. She has little hope of getting subsidized housing because she is considered as having a roof over her head and the homeless have priority.
Rosa, Tuscaloosa
Rosa lives with her husband and four children, who are all in school. They receive $365 a month to care for a handicapped child, and they live on that plus food stamps. He was injured in a job and can’t work now; he gets no disability. They live in a house that is in bad need of repairs, and “it rains in,” Rosa reports. They have no medical coverage of any kind. One of their children was born with an enlarged heart, but after two treatments costing $165 apiece, the doctors told her to stop bringing him in because they weren’t paying. Rosa has been very sickly for over a year, and has needed a doctor’s care, which they can’t afford.
Nanette, Seminole
Nanette’s husband is 46, and their children are 10 and 8. He is diabetic. In 1983 he was injured in a car wreck, and was retrained at Faulkner State Junior College. Eight months ago he stepped on a nail and had to have surgery on his foot. Infection set in, and a second operation was needed. He was hospitalized for six weeks, during which time they discovered that he has a very rare form of TB. He is virtually bedridden, unable to stand for longer than two hours, and unable to sit for long because of back pain. He is on a high, almost toxic, dosage of sulphur medication, which causes more complications. He experiences numbness in his feet, and sometimes cannot dress himself. Nanette is epileptic, and takes 600 mg of Dilantin a day. She would go to school if she could. She worked for a while, but only brought home $420 a month, which was not even enough for essential bills. Meanwhile, there are three people at home who are totally dependent on her. They applied for disability but were told that they were not eligible because they owned a car and a house. They have medical insurance from his former job, but can only keep it for another year. It cost $166 a month while he was working; now that he is laid off it has gone up to $204. Their total medical debt has risen to $12,000, and it will continue to rise. They have sold their cattle, their horses, her jewelry, his gun collection, and continue to sell whatever they can in yard sales. They scrounge for thrown away wood, which they make into craft items and try to sell. They have worked very hard to own what they have. Now they are in the process of losing everything. The husband goes through periods of deep depression.
Mildred, Montgomery
Mildred moved to Montgomery with her aunt and uncle. They went to the housing authority and were told that only two could live in the apartment. So Mildred lived on the streets, sleeping under bridges, on benches, wherever she could find a place. Salvation Army took her in last week and said she could stay while she looks for work. She can do house cleaning and motel work. She has applications all over Montgomery.
Brenda, Birmingham
“I never dreamed that I would be in a situation that I would have to seek federal aid because I had come from a family of hardworking people. I never saw a time when I might consider myself poor although we were never rich.” So said Brenda, who got a degree in business in 1982. From November 1982 to August 1984 she worked in a department store. From October 1984 to December 1985 she worked in a hospital. She married in November 1985 and subsequently lost everything: her credit cards are gone, her car repossessed, her furniture sold. Her husband, a compulsive spender, had completely ruined her. She ended up in another city with a little baby, and no money at all. She didn’t try the federal programs at first, but when she returned to Birmingham, she turned to WIC and the public health center. Her treatment by the assistance people was horrible, she said, and she didn’t need that since she already felt bad enough. She got a job in mid-1988, but had to quit after a month because of the high cost of day care. In January 1989 she returned to school, this time to learn secretarial skills in the hope that she will be able to get a decent job.
Josephine, Birmingham
Josephine lives with four grandchildren plus several other young people that she has taken in for various reasons. She is divorced and receives $425 every two weeks. A couple of years ago her daughter had a baby during the sixth month of pregnancy, and the child had numerous complications with its heart, kidney, breathing, seizures, etc. The baby was in the hospital for a long time, hooked up to various machines. When it came home, the machines came too, and there were supposed to be two adults around at all times to help in emergencies. Over a hundred visits were made to the hospital. The medical bills were huge. Electricity bills were $200-300 a month. Josephine was given $175 a month to care for the baby, but the breathing machine alone cost that much. The baby died when it was 21 months old. Josephine is diabetic, she is now a victim of hypertension, and she has developed ulcers. She applied for food stamps and received them, but she was given a lot of trouble.
Vivian, Mobile
Vivian is the divorced mother of four children, ages 10 to 17. She has never received child support. She works one day a week, earning $50. She lives on that plus food stamps, which she applied for in August and began receiving in March. She lives in a church-owned house, but must pay for utilities. They have no medical coverage. She wanted to go back to school, so she went to the social service department to see if they had any programs that would help her educate herself. They advised her to drop the idea of going back to school and said that she would be much better off if she went on welfare. She did not pursue the welfare idea, but has succeeded in getting a Pell Grant and will finish nursing school in August.
Shirley, Pine Apple
Shirley is the single parent of two children, 7 and 10. She has been on welfare for two years, receiving $118 a month from ADC. She also gets $50 a month child support and receives $300+ in food stamps (used to feed six people). She lives in her grandfather’s house with nine other people. The only one in the house that works is her aunt. They have no money for electricity or water. Shirley applied to the housing authority for subsidized housing, and they told her she had 60 days in which to find a 3-bedroom apartment or house. Since there are none available, her name was taken off the list. Shirley finished 11th grade and has no special work skills. She would like to work but can’t find anything.
Claude, Loxley
Claude is 27 and lives alone. His problem is unemployment: he is looking for work but can’t find anything. He only finished 11th grade but went through the JTPA program and is certified as a cook and a landscaper. He works part time on a farm, usually 2-3 times a week if the weather is good and there is work to be done. They pay him $25 a day, which gives him maybe $75 a week to live on. He usually has about $25 a week to spend on food. He applied for food stamps, but they require three references from non-family acquaintances, with phone numbers, and Claude has not been able to come up with them. All his acquaintances are either family members or people without phone numbers.
Bill, Phil Campbell
Bill is married, the father of four children (16, 10, 8, 2). His trade is carpentry and home building. He worked in Mississippi until things went bad there, and returned to Phil Campbell for a job that had been promised but never materialized. He has visited the employment office, sometimes twice a week, and has gone on many interviews. He is willing to work at anything, but they tell him that he is overqualified. He found what this means at a filling station that advertised for help: he said he was available to work for them, but they said he was overqualified, they were looking for a high school student. Three months ago he contacted the employment office in Russellville, and they told him no problem, they would have him working in a week. So he paid a $2 fee out of their last $5, and he still isn’t working. They live off of the income of his wife, who works even though she had a heart attack two years ago and shouldn’t be working.
Jerry, Florence
Jerry served in the air force as an aircraft mechanic. He left the military 24 years ago after being injured. The air force lost his records in a fire, and his own personal records were lost in a flood. In order, therefore, to qualify for disability, he has had to prove his case through years of examinations and testimonials. Social Security eventually started paying him $195 a month. As soon as he got that his food stamps were stopped. He managed to get them going again, but then they were stopped again when he was given a federal grant to go to college to re-educate himself so that he can get an office job. The grant pays his tuition and books, and also gives him $1000 every six months for living expenses. Jerry says this about his experiences: “It’s quite demeaning and degrading to have to do all this stuff, but when you get to a position where you can’t take care of yourself and everything seems to be failing, you’ve got to go someplace for help. I moved to the Everglades in Florida ten years ago to get away from the system. I gave it all up, I was sick and tired of it. I said I’ll go to the Everglades and I’ll survive, and I did for five years, living off the land, fishing, hunting, as long as I could in the condition I was in. But after five years I had to go to the VA hospital in Miami.”
Virginia, Silverhill
Virginia has cancer, which has spread from her colon to her lungs. With no insurance, she has accumulated over $20,000 in medical bills. She lives on $421 a month Social Security, and pays $10 to this hospital and $5 to that doctor each month. She tried to get help from different agencies, but none of them could help. “I have even stooped so low as to go to welfare, and that is something I never wanted to do, but they couldn’t help.” She gets occasional help from friends and her two sons, who are themselves struggling to support their families. “I throw my hands up and quit. Then I say, no, Virginia, you gotta keep going.”
Couple, Waverly
After working all his life as a painter, he is retired at 63 and draws social security. She is a diabetic, has bleeding ulcers, phlebitis, and a heart condition. Earlier this year she had triple bypass surgery and was receiving Medicaid benefits. She will lose those benefits shortly because the allotted recovery time has passed. On one occasion he earned $10 over the amount permitted by social security and her Medicaid card was taken away for a month. During that time she needed to be hospitalized and now has a large hospital bill. A 33-year old son living with them has been diagnosed as having an eating disorder and weighs about 500 pounds. To qualify for disability he would either have to live on his own or his mother would have to forfeit her benefits. They could move him to a shack next door to the house but they are not willing to do this. Their combined income in $571 a month. Prescriptions run about $100 a month, and they have $22 a month to buy food for the three of them. They cannot afford the special diabetic diet she should be on.
Grandmother, Tuskegee
The mother of nine grown children, she is now raising her son’s four children. She works as a supervisor for a sweet potato co-op: it is seasonal work paying $4 an hour. She was on ADC with her children and is on ADC with her grandchildren. When they grow up she will have only the co-op income to live on. Other jobs are not available in the area and transportation is a major problem in this rural community. Last year they got indoor plumbing in their home.
Couple, Hurtsboro
He has a history of back trouble that made employment difficult. Now 53, he also suffers from heart trouble and high blood pressure. He recently began receiving disability benefits of $368. His wife, a diabetic with high blood pressure, was earning $40 a week to support them. But she required hospital care and they now owe the hospital $6800. She receives $73 a month. Both are on regular medications. They get no food stamps. The house they live in belonged to his mother and has no indoor bathroom. They cannot afford to eat properly or get proper medical care.
Stephanie, Selma
Stephanie is a mother of three children, ages 11, 9, and 3. She works seven days a week, eight hours a day, and earns $133 a week. Since her husband left she has been trying to get child support. Her 75-year old dad keeps her children while she is at work. She walks to work but must take a cab home at night because it is too dangerous to walk home. When the food stamps don’t last and the bills for heating get too high, Stephanie tries to work sixteen hours. She has tried for years to get in Section 8 housing, but since there are people who have been on the list for ten years, they won’t even let her sign up. Says Stephanie: “Every time it seems that I see a little light at the end of the tunnel, something comes up and the light just fades away. Sometimes I am so depressed I feel like I am drowning in a pool of water. My mind says go on and drown, but my body says don’t drown, you have too much work to do.”