This is an incredibly personal story, but thanks to recent articles on TANF and what happens to people on welfare in Mississippi, I feel the need to share it finally. I live in Colorado, which has tended to be fairly progressive, even though we are a swing state. My daughter was only 15 months old when this happened and she is now 15 years old.
When I was 18, I met an older guy, well much older. He was incredibly charming but I wasn't dumb. I knew better. I thought I was in love, but I was also pragmatic enough to know that men his age love having pretty, young girls on their arm. So I did the only thing I thought would save me if he didn't feel the same: I moved across the state from him. However, within 9 months, he had moved to be with me. So I gave him a shot. He made decent money and took care of me. We partied. A lot. At 20, I had our daughter, but I thought it was fine. He seemed overjoyed at being a dad for the first time. I, in turn, decided that for our daughter to have the best life, I needed to stop all my drinking and other nonsense. So by the time I knew I was pregnant, I had settled down quite a bit. I played the housewife role, even though we weren't married. I stayed home with my daughter to nurse her and teach her.
However, he must've felt betrayed in some way by my sudden change of lifestyle. No longer did I want to go out and party. I wanted to be with our daughter and make a family life. So he started having people over, but that doesn't work well when you have a baby that needs attention. So he started going to parties without me. One day, he left for work in the morning, and he never came home. He had the bank accounts, our only car, everything of monetary value. I couldn't even pay for groceries, let alone all our bills. I was starving. I was desperate and alone.
So after a good, long 'poor me' cry, I got angry. I decided I would never allow my child to be put in the state I found myself. I applied to a local community college. I got financial aid and I even got a job working in the IT department of the school. I found help for childcare. I applied for everything I could think of to make things turn out differently. Welfare was one of those things.
Now I had heard all the stories about welfare we hear on the news and online. People are given handouts so vast they can get video games, eat lobster, buy new cars, and even fancy houses. Well was I in for a shock. It took 3 long, desperate, scary days to get approved. And let me tell you, when you have literally nothing, 3 days can seem like months. I didn't eat for the 4 days previous to my application. By the time it got approved, it had been more than a full week. I was nursing still, but luckily she was 15 months old so I wasn't her only source of nourishment. I was packing my things up to move from the place I could no longer pay for (and lucky for me the landlord's wife took pity on me for my predicament and let me out of our lease with only the security deposit taken), when the call came that I was approved for TANF. "Congratulations!" I heard the voice declare. "You've been approved for the max weekly benefits." I thought it was my saving grace. I swore that if god exists, this was his doing.
I was in for a rude awakening. When I went that same afternoon to pickup my benefits card, my case worker met with me to sign the agreement. It was like signing your life away. They gave a massive list of rules I had to follow while on it. They said I couldn't get help for more than 6 months. I was allowed to leave the program voluntarily at any point I wished. If I was found to be lying about anything, I could be jailed or even be denied any state or federal assistance for life. Then came the real shock. She handed me my benefits card and said I'd get a weekly deposit starting that same day as long as I was on the program. She also mentioned that the absentee parent must pay back all funds within 6 months, but that I shouldn't worry about that. Then she told me my benefits amount: $49. All that paperwork and proof of your life and money and everything, for $49 a week! I wasn't even sure that would feed and put diapers on my kid for that amount. But I was starved. So I took it greedily. I only had a month before my job started, school started, and my grants would come through. I thought one month won't hurt me and I should be able to pay it back without too many issues.
So I went about getting whatever few necessities I could for the week and hoped it would last. I also had WICK and though I never needed the formula, I would get it and sometimes use it instead of milk in cereal or other cooking. I figured those two programs together would help ensure I'd make it until school started. My dad helped me get a cheap car. Things were starting to look up.
Then my second week on the program, I got a call from my case worker. She told me that she had found out my daughter's father was hiding out from both of the court cases (I was required to get a child support and custody hearing before I could even apply for TANF). But she said that it shouldn't be an issue still. I was worried though. Because I had just gotten my financial aid receipts and because I hadn't been in school before, I couldn't qualify for work-study grants until after my first semester. So I asked my case worker, will I have to pay this back? She said no.
A month of scrimping and starving went by. School finally started. I got my check from my leftover financial aid. I cancelled my TANF benefits the day I got my check. I did well in school. Life went on. In the spring, I finally got my work-study grant and could take that job I'd been waiting on. It was hard to work outside the college, what with the weird class schedules and a baby to take care of. So that eased my load a ton. Now I simply dropped my kid off in the morning, went to class, then worked, then picked her up again, ate dinner together, then dropped her off at a second daycare around 6pm, and went to night classes. It was a struggle. Even with perfect A's in every class, finding scholarships was stupidly hard. Federal Aid was the only thing that saved me.
Then around the fall of my second year, I get this nasty looking envelope from social services. It said that repayments had not been made in a timely manner. All attempts at correspondence had been ignored (even though this was the first time I had gotten a letter). It said that more than I owed more than $450 to them for TANF payments. That the extra were court fees that were incurred. It also gave vague threats of loss of financial aid and other benefits if it wasn't repaid within 30 days. I immediately called my old case worker. She explained that since my daughter's father was not found and they weren't even sure he was still in the country, that it fell on me now to repay the costs of them trying to get him to repay my TANF benefits. That the court costs were not all listed there. I actually owed them now more than $2500. She affirmed I could lose all aid for childcare and schooling if I refused to pay it. I was heartbroken. A month of starvation and determination and yes, just about $200 of taxpayer money, and now I owed more than 10 times that back. If I knew then what I know now, right?
So with my parents meager help, what was left of my work-study check, and a bit of savings, I got that $2500 paid within the 30 day limit. It was again a struggle. I couldn't pay my bills for the next 3 months. I only had enough for gas, food, and school supplies. I did laundry only once a month and wore clothes that were disgusting. I paid electricity ($35) one month, then the next, it might be the gas bill. It took me more than 2 years from the time I got off of TANF to finally be free of the burden it left me with. I graduated school with honors and as an officer in Phi Beta Kappa. I went to a full state university after that. But it took years off my credit ratings (thanks to not being able to meet my bill payments), my savings, and time spent with my child. All of those things can never be fixed fully. And yet, somehow, welfare recipients are still hated on by conservatives, the media, and many of the public. What a laugh. If you'd ask me now if I'd still take that tiny benefit, my immediate response is no... but there is that small voice. That quiet, honest, and painfully sorrowful voice in my heart that says "if you have no choice, than how can you say no?"