We receive assistance from several government programs
because of our boys. I’ve always been
careful to avoid the appearance of impropriety because I believe that’s my
responsibility as a recipient, to avoid doing something which could jeopardize
the program.
I was speaking about this with a group of friends recently
and one of them was talking about his experience as a board member on the
co-op. Several of the co-ops were
subsidized by social services, in some cases as much as eighty percent of the
fees. And yet the recipients often had
trouble paying the remainder. He would
see them bringing in cases of beer and cigarettes but they couldn’t manage the
rent.
I know about other situations. A family friend does home visits for the
health department and on visiting one family, she saw a brand new snowsuit
lying in a puddle of water in the front yard.
She picked it up and brought it inside but the parents dismissed her
concern, saying they’d just get a new one from the Snowsuit Fund (which
collects new and gently used snowsuits for needy families).
Situations like these are the ones which tend to make people
jaded and skeptical about assistance programs.
It gives conservatives reasons to slash funding. It makes the regulations and red-tape
tighter, forcing those who need help to jump through more and more hoops in
order to get it, slowing everything down and raising overhead costs. It makes it harder for new programs and
charities to get funding.
I don’t think we need to get too puritan in our expectations
of recipients. There was a fuss recently
about a family who was receiving respite for their autistic child and they went
on an expensive cruise. I don’t have a
problem with that. Just because you’re
getting help doesn’t mean you can’t have a vacation. (Especially in this case since it turned out
they’d saved for seven years to make it happen.) I’m not even against families buying booze or
cigarettes, as long as the children have enough food and the rent is paid
for. If not, there are provisions for
dealing with that. Neglecting your
children is something which can be prosecuted and if your children are taken
away, the money you receive for them goes too.
There are abuses out there and those who abuse the system
should be dealt with. But not by
throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The majority of those who receive assistance are good people who are
doing their best in bad situations and need the help. They don’t deserve to be punished because of
freeloaders.
But I think we also need to start raising the social
consciousness out there. It can’t hurt
if people start thinking about how their actions affect others. We all have a responsibility to make society
run smoothly.
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