Why I Care: Hannah's Story

In my first post, I shared about how my policy class last semester acted as a catalyst for my interest in macro social work. Now I would like to share with you about a friendship of mine that further drives me towards a career in advocacy and program and policy analysis. Tonight I want to write about social welfare, and how I have seen it fall short.

A close friend of mine, we will refer to her as Hannah, is an individual who has been let down by our state’s [Alabama] existing welfare system. Hannah is 26 years old, divorced, and a mother of two young children. Her son is four years old, and her daughter is two years old. Hannah’s ex-husband kept their family home, and she moved in with her dad. The custody arrangement is that the children alternate weeks with their father and mother. After a year of living with her dad, Hannah decided she wanted to do everything she could to move into her own place and provide a more stable environment for her children during their weeks with her. She found a modest three-bedroom house for rent in a nice neighborhood and managed to move into it, despite facing financial difficulties. Hannah works full-time at a medical clinic where she is gaining experience to use in her future career. She is also in school full-time working towards completing a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science and wants to go on to graduate school to become a Physicians’ Assistant. She does receive a small Federal Pell Grant that helps some with the cost of school, but it does not cover all of her education expenses. Hannah brings home a net income of about $1,300 a month, and she receives $1,000 a month in child support. Childcare for the two children costs $1,495 a month, and her divorce decree explicitly states that financial burden is hers alone. Her monthly expenses include $850 for rent, about $350 for utilities, $14 for renter’s insurance, $260 for her car payment, and $134 for car insurance. Figure in additional purchases like groceries, gas, and other necessities, and her expenses far exceed her income. One of Hannah’s recurring struggles is food insecurity. If she somehow manages to get all of her bills paid for the month, she often has nothing left to spend on groceries. Astonishingly, even with these figures reported to the county Department of Human Resources, Hannah has been denied food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or “Food Stamps”). Even more surprising, when she received notice that she had been denied, the notice showed that her monthly cost for her dependents (her two children) was $0. Therefore, because one individual made the mistake of not figuring in her monthly childcare expenses, she was denied food assistance. When Hannah asked how she could get the error corrected, she was told that her case was closed, if she wanted to make an appeal she could do so through the main office in Montgomery, and that the appeal process would take a minimum of 90 days. Even if the error in figures gets corrected through an appeal, Hannah may still not be approved for benefits. At this time, Hannah is $300 short of what she needs to pay her upcoming bills, and she has had to purchase groceries on more than one credit account.

I share Hannah’s story with you because I believe it is an excellent example of our welfare system failing the exact person it was created to support. Hannah has expressed extreme feelings of frustration, bewilderment, and despair to me. She, and I, cannot understand how the harder she works to provide for herself and her children, the less assistance she receives. At one point in time, Hannah did qualify for SNAP. When she got a better job with a slightly larger paycheck, her benefits were terminated. Despite her small pay raise, she was not financially prepared to lose her food assistance. She applied again in her new county after her move and assumed with her new living expenses that she would qualify again. Apparently she assumed wrong.

When people think of someone on welfare, they typically do not picture a full-time employee, college student, and mother who is working diligently to provide for herself and her children. They do not consider the people who simply need temporary assistance, or those sincerely in need of long-term assistance due to permanent disabilities. For decades, society has been so worried about who they do not want to receive government assistance, instead of focusing on meeting the genuine needs of our legitimately vulnerable populations. Stories like Hannah’s inspire me to advocate on behalf of those populations. There are so many people who genuinely need assistance that they are not able to receive because of bureaucratic red tape. When I picture my future as a macro practitioner, I imagine myself lobbying on the behalf of these individuals. I want to work together with my fellow millennials to make large-scale changes on behalf of the needs identified by the micro practitioners on the front lines: the ones who meet Hannah’s in the field every day.