Within the first couple of weeks of living together, I realized that the time had come that I was not going to be able to support Chez, Joad and myself on my meager salary. (It didn't help that Chez wanted to eat out all the time.) We had to look into having her go on Welfare.
We called the welfare benefits department and they told us that we could show up any Monday through Friday at their office at the intersection of 73rd and El Cajon Blvd. They told us we needed to get there before 6:30 in the morning because that was what time they started signing people up to meet with counselors throughout the day. We were also told that there would be a line at that time and to get there early.
We picked a day that I didn't have to be at work and went to the intersection. We grabbed her domestic violence verification paperwork and brought it with us. We found the building that appeared to be where we were supposed to be and parked in the lot outside. However, we didn't see a line. I thought we lucked out. After waiting a few minutes, we saw other people park near us, but they went off in another direction. When I went to see where they were going, I saw another building across the street and half a block up 73rd. I saw a long line outside. THAT WAS WHERE WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO!
It looked like there were about 100 people in line. While we were waiting, several thoughts were running through my mind. First was that this happens EVERY SINGLE DAY! People are showing up here to see if they can qualify for welfare benefits. And there is apparently a never-ending supply of people who come here every day. So, no matter what day you're going to come down, there's going to be a line. Another surprising thing was how many able-bodied men were in the line. (It seemed like there were relatively few women with children there.) My thought was that these were likely people who couldn't hold down a job because they had problems with showing up on time, yet they were able to show up here today at 6:30am, or even earlier. I'll bet many of them were waiting here since 5am. I also wondered if they ever had people show up, see the line and say, "Oh, forget this! I'm going to go get a job!" Somehow, I don't think that happens very often.
After Chez provided her name to the staff, we had to go and wait in this very small lobby. It clearly was not large enough for 100 people. Even worse was the fact that the counselors didn't arrive at the office until 8am. That meant that everyone, including those who were first in line, were going to have to wait at least an hour an a half before they got to talk to someone. Even worse was that we had absolutely no estimate of how long it would be before we saw a counselor. But we would have to wait there. And if we left the building and they happened to call her name, we wouldn't get to see a counselor that day. One of us had to be inside the building the whole time. Imagine how bad it is for those who were by themselves. If they didn't know ahead of time about waiting in the lobby for their names to be called, they probably couldn't run the risk of going to get something to eat.
You could just feel like this was the most depressing place anyone would have to spend time at. There were so many people there who were at the end of their ropes and no one was 100% certain they were going to qualify for benefits. They simply had nowhere else left to turn. In the lobby, a VCR played some kids movie, but no one was watching it. Children were running around and making a lot of noise. Chez just sat there in the middle of it all with a thousand-yard stare. This was probably way worse than the welfare office in Roswell.
Lunchtime rolled around and I ran out to get us something to eat. When I came back, she and Joad were still waiting there. Around 2pm (after we'd been there almost eight hours), Joad needed to have his diaper changed. I took him out to the car. When we came back to the office, one of the other women who had been waiting said, "They called your wife in!" I went to the door for appointments and told them that Joad's mother had been called in and I needed to be in there with her. I had to give Chez' name and someone went to look to see which office she was in. A few minutes later, they let me in. I found Chez and started to go into the office, but the counselor told me I didn't need to be there and I had to go back into the lobby. (No! Don't make me go back there!)
When Chez came out, she said there were a few things we needed to do to start getting benefits. But she said they could get done within the next week and then they would cut her a check that would include SSI benefits and Food Stamps. (At this time, California was working toward its debit card system for Food Stamps and SSI benefits. However, since they didn't have that system ready and food stamps were being used as an alternative form of currency, they just decided to go ahead and give everybody cash.) She was told she would be receiving $600 a month. She said her jaw dropped to the floor when the woman told her that. All she could get out of welfare in New Mexico was $200. She'd never had that much money at one time in her life.
We also had to go to another location to apply for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits. I'd never heard of this program before, but it supplies some food items to mothers and their children. Even though he was more than a year old, Joad was still on formula. This was because he was lactose intolerant. I found out how intolerant he was when I gave him some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and saw his face break out in little red bumps. The WIC vouchers provided all his formula. They also had vouchers for cheese, unsweetened cereal and milk for the mother.
With WIC, you have to use a specific grocery store that you get to choose. We picked the Lucky supermarket that was down just a few blocks from our apartment. The interesting thing about the vouchers is that they said they were good for two pounds of block cheese, but the amount wasn't to exceed $7. Two blocks of cheese don't even come close to $7 at Lucky. I wondered, if WIC was prepared to pay $7, why couldn't we just get $7 worth of cheese? In fact, I'm surprised that the grocery stores don't actually charge that much for the cheese when someone shows up with a voucher. It would be the exact opposite of a coupon in that the price goes up at the register when you show it to the cashier.
One of the problems I encounteted was that, once we got home from our WIC shopping, Chez would take one of the blocks, get a knife and consume the entire block in one sitting. (I'm surprised she didn't just bite directly off the block.) Later, she'd get around to the other block and it would be gone just as quickly. It almost felt like WIC didn't really make that much of a difference in terms of the food supply for the women.
And that's what life is like when you're trying to live on public assistance. It actually is a lot of hard work.
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