April 26, 2007

• Hunger Awareness

  Are you hungry?  Have you been hungry recently?  I mean really hungry, and scared because there's no food in the house.  I haven't. 

  My tummy rumbled a few minutes ago and I ate the apple and the tuna salad I brought to work with me.  That's as close to real hunger as I ever get these days. 

  There are hungry people in this country.  There are families who pray that the schools won't cancel class due to snow because if they do the kids won't get lunch.  There are families in this country where Mom always lets the kids eat first because she figures that if there's not much left over, she's the adult and it won't hurt her as much as it will hurt one of those growing bodies if she doesn't eat every night.

  I know some of those families.  Their faces come to my mind when I hear comments to the effect that people who are suffering from poverty, or who receive government assistance for their families are somehow cheating the rest of us or getting something for free that the rest of us are working to have. 

  Oh, but you say, we have food banks and food stamps and it's pretty easy for a family to get food in this country.  Right?  And those things ARE free to the people who use them.  Right?

  There are food banks.  And they have posted hours.  To get your box of pasta and tomato sauce, you have to arrive during those hours, most often between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.  So if you are one of the seven million people working at or below the poverty line in this country, forget it, you aren't going to get those noodles because you're at work.  If you are one of the additional 24 million people (mostly children) who depend on those seven million workers to feed them, you don't get the noodles either.

  This week the Governor of Oregon is taking part in a hunger awareness exercise.  He's eating what he was able to purchase with the average amount of money received by someone who qualifies for food stamps in his state.  He had $21. 

  Many of my readers know that it wasn't that long ago that my family needed food stamps to put the noodles on our table.  I was trying to work, not making ends meet, and the cost of rent, utilities and gas to get to work equalled the amount of my income.  The State of Colorado awarded my family of three $96 a month.  Rounding a month down to four weeks that comes to $24 a week and divided by three means that we were assisted to the tune of $8 per person per week.

  I can and have found ways to eat pretty cheap.  One thing I did was get a job in a restaurant where I had the benefit of soup and salad for my lunch every day.  Another thing I did was buy beans, rice, peanut butter, and other staples that I could use to make meals for pennies.  Tucker and Michael had fresh fruit most days.  I bought bread then and still do at the "day old" outlet.  (I highly recommend this to anyone who has this available as an option.  The bread costs half what it does in the grocery store, and at the outlet I use for every $5 you spend, you get a free item.  I usually spend about $10 and I bring home two or three bags of bread and stick it in the freezer.)  And none of us went hungry. 

  And I want to say again, I have some of the most wonderful friends in the world.  I won't name them because I know they would be embarrassed.  But I will tell you that there were times when I was down to the last money in my wallet and trying to decide between gas for the car or milk for the kids when I would go to the mailbox and find an unexpected check. 

  Earlier this week, I talked about the recommendation from the boys' therapist that I move to another state where there are better services for Autism Spectrum Disorders.  I told you that I had that moment of realization that I had been resisting making the move because I was irrationally convinced that moving to a place where I want to live would necessarily mean a hardship for the guys.  Part of where that thinking comes from is the experience we had when we moved here three years ago. 

  My relationship with the Colorado Department of Human Services has ended - Thank God.  During the time that I received food stamps (about 14 months total) I had a two month period where I received nothing at all due to the fact that there was no income reported for that time period.  I didn't report any, because I didn't HAVE any.  The response of the Department was to send me a letter telling me that my benefit was denied because I was guilty of fraud.  They further demanded that I repay money paid the month prior to that time and said that if I failed to do so within a given time period criminal charges would be filed. 

  I didn't have the money to repay them.  I'm very lucky because I have a Pre-paid Legal Membership and the letter from my attorney there got someone's attention.  They dropped the criminal complaint.  They never apologized, and they never paid any of the "benefit" that I was supposed to have received those two months. 

  When I lost the waitressing positon, I sent a letter the following day explaining that I had lost the income from that position.  I got no response and for the next seven weeks the kids and I lived on child support, the amount of money I had managed to squirrel away in savings, and the $70 a week I was awarded for unemployment compensation. 

  As soon as I got another job, I notified the case worker.  The end result of that?  A decision that I had been overpaid and that I owed the money back to the state of Colorado.  I wrote a check, which they cashed, for the amount they said I owed.  Then in September, I received another letter stating that I owed another $135 and that if it weren't paid by August 31, they would place an intercept on my tax refund to collect the money.  They did that.

  Some really industrious number crunchers added up all the costs of all the programs and all the tangibles they could find associated with poverty in this country and they discovered that it comes to a total of something like $500 billion.  yeah.  They discovered that it costs approximately $16,500 per man woman and child in poverty. 

  Anyway, I tell you that to get to the point of digging down to the bottom of a couple of different things that I've been thinking about.  I have been acting lately like I think I live in a world of scarcity.  I eat more at any given meal than I am really hungry for, as though I don't think there will be enough at the next meal.  I save money obsessively and fret that I can't figure out a way to save more as though I'm afraid I won't have income tomorrow.  And I worry about the fact that I have to pay for car repairs from last week's accident even though I know that's what the savings account is for because the money that I will have to take out of that savings account, what if I REALLY need it the following week? 

  How much is enough?  What amount of money would I have to have stashed away in the mattress in order to feel safe?  I know for certain that it's more than I have now.  I incurred some debt over the past several months and I've lain awake more nights than I care to admit worrying about that.  Trying to figure out how quickly I can get it paid off.  And planning the timing of my move so that I won't have any debt when I go.

  And how quickly will I move?  Well, for right now, Michael and Tucker are both receiving excellent therapy that I believe is going to make a real difference in their lives.  I want them to have the benefit of that therapy.  I also know that there's another school year coming, and it would be really nice to be able to have them start and fnish that year in the same place.  But, the school that Michael is in doesn't meet his needs academically, socially or otherwise.  Surely it would be better to move, even if it's in the midst of a semester than to toss good after bad with my son in a less than optimal circumstance. 

  I'm hungry to know what's the best thing to do.  I'm worried about how long it will take me to find another job and what that job will pay.  I worry about whether I can afford good housing and what it will cost me to move.

  There is a cost to hunger.  There is a real dollar cost for the services and resources spent or lost.  And there is a human cost.  There is a price that's paid in loss of confidence, security and hope.  I pay the price when I lie awake at night figuring and refiguring my budget. 

  I am damned lucky and I know it.  I had a network of friends who stood beside me and wove a pretty tight web.  They were determined that there would be bread and peanut butter in my pantry at all times.  And there has been.  I wonder what it would be like for me if I hadn't had their support.  I just wonder ...

  • 2:37 pm
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