Food Assistance APPROVED

Yippee! My food assistance was finally approved here in Franklin County.  Every step of this tedious, frustrating and confusing process made me thankful for the Benefit Bank.

Navigating the system = success.

http://www.oashf.org/

Pre-Service Orientation Reflections

I stumbled upon random writings I did while at Pre-Service Orientation in Lombard, Illinois for my AmeriCorps*VISTA term.   I thought I would share highlights of what I recorded from that weekend in mid-June of this year, before I started at my organization.

The most impactful time from yesterday was the opportunity to sit in a circle and talk about our experience with poverty.  Some people had very real and honest experience in generational poverty, and I was blown away by their presence at PSO; their effort to simultaneously emerge from the cycle and their desire to help others do the same.  Others had no experience with poverty, even lacking experience discussing the issue to discover the varied causes of poverty.  These fellow VISTAs expressed they didn’t realize poverty wasn’t in just Africa, but it was an invisible problem in their backyard.  It was a curious theme, the invisibility.  Money, class, and even the state of being in poverty can be both very visible and very hidden at the same time.  I was amazed to learn that everyone saying they grew up in poverty never knew they were poor.   Their parents hid it from them, and they assured the group they would do the same for their kids.  All want a better life for their children, yet all are hiding the facts.  I wonder what would happen if these parents had honest conversations about their financial situation.  Would the kids be able to grasp it and us it as a catalyst to dream big and “get out” of the cycle?  OR would it continue to be a “this is how it is” situation, with acceptance in early childhood and complacency?  There’s always these what if questions and I always want to take action on them to see if changing the current can change the future.  I do have to remember this doesn’t stay a discussion, a theory, or a simple curious question.  It’s a life, and it’s not even my own. 

On the way home from Illinois a huge storm came through the airport.  I was in a tiny plane, stuck on the runway for about 1.5 hours.  We had to finally go back to the airport, where I happily rewarded my misfortune with an Oreo McFlurry.  When we finally boarded and were cleared for an alternate route back to Ohio, all the passengers erupted in cheers and applause.  On take-off, I kid you not, people put their hands in the air and cried “whee” as if we were on a roller coaster.  A couple minutes into the flight the stewardess told us to hold tight, she’ll be coming around with those “drinks” the guys were asking for when we were stranded.  A weird sense of community is formed in these situations, any attempt at humor is a relief from the frustration.  We were like a big, grumpy, cramped, slap happy United (Airlines) family.

By the numbers, for the people

To give you can idea of the amount of communication that is involved in my AmeriCorps*VISTA position, here is a summary in numbers:

• Average number of emails sent daily: 28
• Average number of emails received daily: 15
• Number of phone calls (incoming and outgoing combined): 3-15 (depending on meetings and trainings where I can't answer my phone)
• Average number of in person meetings/outreach per week: 4 (this doesn't count all day trainings)

I do at least one training a week in Franklin County, this week I had a second training in Clark County, meaning I trained a total of 17 people in my region just this week to be counselors.   I also got two new site notifications this week, our network is growing so fast!

Granted I am working in Franklin County so I most likely have to field more communication than some other regions, but can you imagine how many lives my program is touching if all 12 other people in my position across Ohio are communicating about the same amount with people in their regions?

Then I think about all the people who aren't being connected.  Despite all of our efforts, there are still plenty of people out there who are struggling to get by, who are eligible for assistance, yet they aren't accessing the programs that can give them a step up to self-sufficiency.

The challenge in the coming months is not to see how many more people I can meet, how many more emails I can send, or how many outreach events I can attend, but rather to communicate with the right people, strategize in appropriate ways, and attend the most relevant outreach events to get as many people connected as possible.  What is the point of putting effort into a new site if they don't have the capacity to serve clients? It's so easy to get pulled into the numbers game, talking about numbers of new sites and numbers of counselors, but it's so important the our focus here at my organization stays on how many clients we are helping through the system.

I am working on outreach strategies for some of my more rural counties, do my readers have any ideas about how you would like to see the efforts to connect low-income Ohioans to public benefits mobilized and utilized?

Tools to Navigate the system

After fielding various phone calls from trained counselors not having a clear idea of what exactly happens to the applications once they put them through the software I train with, I can see why my supervisor wanted me to do a "counselor supplement" project.

If you consider the notion that people only hear 15% of what is said to them, and every single word that comes out of my mouth is crucial (perhaps except my corny jokes that are meant to keep people awake), we have to prepare and equip counselors to find answers to questions after they leave the training.  They go home with an entire training book, but that is designed for state-wide use and is mainly step-by-step how to use the software.  Once counselors sit down with a real person in need of real help, there is a lot more involved than just navigating the software.  They have to help their client navigate the entire public benefits system.

Hopefully this is where my supplements come in.  I am meeting with intake workers and supervisors in every single county in the Central region.  This serves a few purposes:

• Further solidfying the relationship between the my program and JFS
• Showing JFS that we want to work with them and are trying to help them work more efficiently with clients
• Gives JFS the opportunity to voice concerns and create a conversation about how the our software works.
• Counselors are assured the information I give them is current and correct, as it is straight from the intake workers.

They've been very productive meetings, and helpful for me to see the other side of the JFS office (especially after dealing with my own frustrations in getting food assistance.  Still in that battle, by the way.) 

Technology: the Good, the Bad, and the Prezi

After many tedious hours, resulting eye strain and an intimate bond with my region's blog, I have finally finished the new "Blog Tour" for my project.  You can view it if you visit OBBservations in Central Ohio.  I love that I found this presentation tool, anything beats the technology of Powerpoint at this point.

I deal with technology a lot in my position.  Going further than the fact that I sit all day in front of a computer managing Outlook and juggling massive spreadsheets in Google Docs, the entire software,y program uses to connect Ohioans with public benefits and tax credits is online.  As JFS Director Lumpkin reminded us in his remarks at the OBB Conference,

You can’t effectuate change and policy without IT.  A real player in this environment, the Benefit Bank is a  platform on the IT platform.   

I think to some people technology (in the form of computer, internet, etc) is still a luxury.  There are movements to "go without technology for an entire WEEK!"  (Could you do it?!?)  Well of course I could do it, but why?  I could go without other modernizations like a dishwasher or a car for a week, but all these things are here to help me function more efficiently, to connect faster, and to solve problems.  I don't see it as progress for progress sake, but as progress in the face of inefficiencies. It seems that I am listening too much to the industrial engineer in my life, all this talk of efficiency.   I digress...

I've concluded technology is necessary and helpful for advancement to save time and connect the world, especially in the realm of helping to connect low-income Ohioans with benefits.  But is technology only as good as the people who use it?  I have some trainees that zoom through the software and it clicks for them right away (Get it? Clicks for them? Mouse humor, heh heh). Then I have some trainees who need help figuring out how to close browser tabs and finding the address bar.  Sometimes the less computer-literate counselors are actually the most detailed and thorough counselors in helping clients.  But again, is the program only as good as the counselor who is able to navigate it?

 My new excuse for not calling Mom... (http://americanhell.com/

)

Since I was already on food assistance when I moved to Franklin County, I didn't have the luxury of using my program's software to transfer my case and I had to go in myself, wait in line (gasp!), and hand in my documents.  When I got up to the window, the intake worker said their scanner was down, so they couldn't take my verifications officially.  They have been copying everyone's documents, then scanning them later in the day.  So double work for them, and I as the client walk away with no guarantee/receipt that they got my documents.  I asked how often this technology failure happens.  She said almost every morning.  Every morning an increasing amount of people visit JFS because they need assistance, every morning their technology fails, every morning the two intake workers have to take turns walking to the very back of the building to copy documents and then remember to re-scan everything later in the day. 

Technology is fabulous.  Technology can be used as an excuse, a crutch, or for useless things.  All I know is that I can talk to friends teaching Spain and China, or doing the Peace Corps in Macedonia with technology, so I am generally currently satisfied with the way things are going :-)

Mobile Unit Adventure

I made a cameo in the Mobile Unit blog! http://obbmobileexpress.blogspot.com/2010/10/record-setting-week.html

It was a great chance to get out and do direct service, especially at an event where people are already in dire straights (the event in Dayton was a "Foreclosure Prevention" day).

I also went to the Mum festival, which wasn't as targeted but we did actually see some repeats from the day before, including one woman who dragged her friend into the van so we could tell her about all the magical things the my program offers (or how she could get help paying her utility bills...choose whichever reason sounds more fun).

The Mum festival, like any small town Ohio festival (Milan Melon Fest shout out!) had an excruciatingly long parade, comprised of ridiculous floats and entries.  There were at least 3 different high school bands, an exciting appearance by Ronald McDonald, Frances Strickland (Mrs. Governor), and a Democratic Party float toting all the good things the Democratic party sponsors, which for some reason included AmeriCorps and the PeaceCorps. 

OBB Mobile Unit ready to serve at the Mum Festival

My work station inside the van

Colleague preparing to take clients

I think this was supposed to be of Frances Strickland, but I don't see her.  Oh well, look at all the people watching!

Poverty Simulation

Poverty Simulation

I walked in and was handed a name card the read “Yomelda Yarrow.”  I sat down and met my husband, “Yuri Yarow”, who was in fact my coworker Elizabeth.  We were sitting in two chairs facing each other constituting our house for the next hour.  50 other people were being assigned an alias for the simulation, sitting in home groups around the room.   Elizabeth/Yuri and I picked up the baby dolls on our pile of information and started orienting ourselves with our situation.  We discovered that I had a job but limited English skills, Yuri received a social security check, and found the babies were our grandchildren that we had to care for (due to their mother being incarcerated for drug use).  Before we began the simulation, we were introduced to the agencies represented around the room, which we would have to interact with to survive the simulation. These included: jail, police, pawn shop, quick check cashing, mortgage company, Job and Family Services, school, grocery, bank, an interfaith organization, Community Action, and an employer.   We set off to navigate a month in poverty for the next hour, with each of the next 15 minute periods representing one week.

Anecdote Summary

The first week we were able to buy food, but I forgot my grandkids kids at school.  I chased down child services, panicked after they confiscated the grandkids, trying to explain that I just got off work.   I was in line for groceries, and I was simply late to pick them up, not neglectful.  Panic is actually pretty good word to describe the entire hour (ahem, month).    The child services worker had sympathy on me as I was speaking in broken English, due to my limited language skills.  Luckily in this situation, this incapacity helped.  30 seconds earlier, while purchasing food, the cashier noticed I couldn’t speak English well and short changed me.  I’m not good at English, but I’m not dumb.  I had to demand the correct change of “40 dollars!” three times until she laid down the correct change amount for my purchases.   Most other families weren’t so diligent, and they got ripped off everywhere from the pawn shop to the check cash place.  My family was lucky enough to have a bank account, so we didn’t have to deal with the quick cash venue.  

Even knowing the assistance system, as someone who works for the Benefit Bank, and having a basis for where to get things (utility help from community action, clothing vouchers from Interfaith), we still couldn’t make it.   Some families in the simulation (and in real life, of course) are constantly fighting the tide.  Trying to claw their way back to the top.  It was almost just as bad hovering on the edge of not making it.  There is a constant panic, a constant fear of being evicted.  One little thing could go wrong and throw the entire survival system out the window.  And I use the word “system” loosely, it ended up being more of a haphazard hastily made minute-by-minute strategy.  In the 30 seconds I had to reconvene with my husband, we quickly summarized our progress (“got autoloan paid off, got a pay check, do we have enough money for the mortgage?”) and hurriedly tried to figure out how to make it the next week (“Can you fill this out during work?  As soon as you get the kids, you have to get in line for groceries…”).  The entire simulation was stressful, chaotic, panicked.

Time

The waiting was the worst.  There are a million other places you have to go including the bank to pay your mortgage and the pawn shop to try and score some extra cash, but you have to wait in line for inordinate amounts of time to take care of basic needs.  If you are not from a low-income family, think of the DMV.  Think of those lines at every place you are trying to go.  Then, I would say more than half the time, it closes before you can get up there.  Or they tell you that you are in the wrong line. Those are absolutely awful sinking feelings.  Having waited and waited for something that you desperately need (think food or paying for electric).  When every minute truly counts in this game of survival, you literally can’t afford to be in the wrong line. 

Oftentimes when a family is working poor, trying to get by day to day without financial security, they have a “here and now” mindset.  There is no guarantee of money in the future, so the strategy is to spend everything you have right now, to alleviate some pain or try to catch up.  Planning for the future isn’t an option, because the future is so unstable.  When you are hungry now, you have to eat now.  There is no thought about budgeting or planning.  Doing the simulation as a person from a middle class upbringing, there was a bit of inner discrepancy in how I approached our fake families’ month.  I know my friend Molly, also from the middle class in real life, was in the simulation “very much preparing for the future-- my 16-year-old pregnant daughter was going to social services to prepare for her baby being born in 2 months, I was trying to budget from the start rather than prioritize and make it by week-by-week.  I really believed that there was a "right" way to manage it and if I did it well I would not only get by but would also succeed.”  I think the Yarrow family tried this approach of planning during our 30 second breaks, but it ended up turning to chaos when we didn’t have the correct verification, a store was closed, or we didn’t have enough transportation resources to get somewhere.  There was no option to organize; we just had to do it.  Problem solve on the go, as we passed each other running from agency to agency.

Public Benefits

My family wasn’t on public assistance, we were just trying to work hard, pay our bills, and keep our house.  A true picture of a working poor family.  We actually knew we could get our grandkids health insurance through social services, but we didn’t have time to go wait in line and deal with the system.  We chose food, heat, and keeping our house over health security for our grandkids.  Insurance isn’t a survival part of life, but plenty of other families did have to choose between basic needs.  They chose to wait in line for feed their families, with the hope that the next week they would have enough money to pay the mortgage (and the hope that the mortgage company would have a little mercy.) 

On Edge

My colleague Molly summed it up well: I was worried about how I was going to feed my kids that week. “Even though it was a simulation I felt panicked and guilty and worried in an hour-long simulation and I was not even the worst off .”    If the Yarrows had this much trouble navigating life with their resources in this short month, I can’t imagine a real experience.  I can imagine, though, the results.  Irritability.  Bitterness.   Stress.  And that’s not necessarily hostility aimed at any institution.  It’s just a general frustration.  Why can’t I make this work, even though I am trying to do everything right?  When they came back to evicted “homes” (overturned chairs and a big ugly sign in the simulation), they witnessed the downfall of living in poverty, the result of living for the now.  It’s so easy to not plan ahead well, to not think things through completely, to make what look like stupid decision to the outside world, because you are hungry, your kids are hungry, and you have nowhere else to turn.  Might as well eat now, because who knows when you will have money to eat again.   Nothing is ever guaranteed.  Getting a job is not guaranteed.  Keeping a job is not guaranteed.  

Poverty is Relative

I was grateful that the Yarrow family wasn’t the “worst off.”  Other families had pregnant teenagers, were getting evicted or robbed, or had no family at all for a support network.  When we did the debriefing though, it seemed like no family thought they had it worst, everyone thought that there was always someone with a more dire situation.  Poverty is truly relative.  The government sets the FPIG, and therefore the poverty line is based on income.   I would argue (as I’m sure many others serving the low-income families of America) that poverty is what you make of it.  If it’s a lack of resources, what resources does your family need to survive, and which don’t you have?  My family needed food and childcare.   Other families needed lots of help to pay utility bills, or even basic employment.  If we can’t meet our basic needs and get by day to day, that’s poverty.

Relationships and Survival

Earlier in the day we learned that low income families function around a couple of principles: relationships and survival.  Comparatively, if you look at the middle class, people from this class will function around the achievement principle.   People from the upper class function around the connections they have.  With the lower class, survival is their basic drive.  Relationships can be a force that keep them in poverty (not wanting to leave comfort zone, abandon family, etc), but relationship are also crucial to survival.   If you think about it, low income families are some of the best problem solvers.   They have to be if they want to survive.  I found myself with lowered inhibitions during the simulation.  I had to get what I had to get, and I didn’t care who I had to talk to to do it.  For example, our neighbors were telling everyone around that they would babysit for transportation passes.  When there was a week when we couldn’t send our kids to school and neither of us could stay home, we desperately needed to use this resource.  They had enough transportation passes from other families so we had to trade our stereo for a week of babysitting, but what other choice did we have?  

Again from my colleague Molly -- It really does seem like a blur now that I'm looking back, but I still can't believe that my family only ate for 2 weeks and one of those weeks we only ate because some 85-year-old man overheard me talking about my troubles and gave me $15 to buy the rest of my groceries.  I felt such gratitude in that very small gesture that it almost felt real, and more than anything I wanted to pay him back or pay it forward.