Before I write this one, here is a caveat, some organizations have helped me, including a dental one, and some churches and their programs. So I am not saying there is no help out there, there is SOME, but I have noticed some scary things about the social work world.
They are only getting worse. The social safety nets have decayed to the point of no return. Are there good social workers? Yes, sure there are, but they are within a corrupt system. They don't pay them much. Their overlords make endless demands of them that are nearly impossible. Their case loads are crushing. When I was a residential counselor, I was in that system myself, I saw myself a lot of crazy stuff while working in it.
Some may say beggars can't be choosers, and maybe think I am entitled, if you can help yourself always do that first. It sucks to need help. Live responsibly. Pay rent first. Avoid drinking, gambling, and drugs. Do what you can. If your body works, and you can breathe and walk, don't give up.
I wish I had been able to have a more self-sufficient life. You have to know even years later, I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had stable employment and able to afford necessities and medical insurance. Even one good job for him, [we got some good working-class years via his employment with no need of help on and off] would have changed everything.
The fridge is empty again, and I did figure out how to pay the hospital 30 bucks today to keep my payment plan. I can't walk today from my muscle problems [I could walk normal for me on my walker all week] so today is not an easy day.
EBT, welfare and food stamps is run pretty direct in my state, you either qualify or you don't. Social Security runs pretty well too, except many are worried about cuts there and what Elon Musk did to the place. But a lot of other programs and social services, it's complicated as crazy.
I have noticed when people go seeking their help, that most of the answers always seem to be "no" or where you are automatically weeded out. I wrote about my housing troubles recently where I was 'weeded" out, but I've heard many of the stories of others. My weeding out there could be a variety of reasons from asking too many questions, to being super-sized to my husband's self-employment. It hit me hard. Why? Because I was trying to improve things and again it fell through. You get an idea, and want to improve your life. Why didn't it work?
I have been shown the door in many other social work situations.
Here are times I got turned down or turned away by the social work world during my life
During my 20s, I was severely ill in the city I lived in before I lived in Chicago, and had my anxiety disorders, and PTSD/panic disorder already diagnosed. I went to a program for housing for those with mental health and physical problems, I was desperate and about to be homeless. I escaped the homelessness moving to Chicago but that came at great cost.
While I worked a lot, I had two major job lay-offs happen at the same time. I was not surviving well at all, and often did not have groceries or basic food or medical care .There was no health insurance. One therapist already suspected I was autistic. These people turned me down flat, there was simply no help. I got the feeling they only helped those who got referred or had wealthier parents who advocated for them. It was a strange feeling. No one ever gave me a reason.
Also during this same time, I was turned down for food stamps and told that I was "abled bodied" and did not qualify. This was the 1990s, the rules are even more strict today.
I applied for disability in my mid 20s, I got it in my late 20s. I knew I was getting very sick. I remember telling doctors, and social workers about constant pain, extreme weight, breathing problems and more. This blog exposed the endless fat bigotry but my medical problems were beyond the problems of obesity. One thing that worked against me, is I could not afford to see doctors very often except at a few "free clinics" so my health records outside of the constant ER visits and hospitalizations for asthma/breathing problems and leg/stomach infections were minimal. That's a crack that many disabled people fall through.
Once I had to get this lung medicine [I am on something stronger now] via the pharm company's program but they required you had a social worker sign off to receive your medicine. The social worker even after three visits from me, lost all my paperwork, never sent it in, and refused to help me. The medicine cost over 300 dollars retail.
There are MULTIPLE times in my life, I have gone without needed medication. My inability to afford antibiotics put me in the hospital at least once in Chicago. The social workers never helped with any of this. Yes, I asked too. This was in the days before you could get cheap antibiotics, and they were 100-150 dollars.
Chicago, I have written enough about the nightmares there. It was hard to find any help, even food pantries when I look back seemed very rare or there were special groups they catered to, like immigrants or the Orthodox Jewish population I lived around but no one else. The offices of the 1990s were very draconian places. I remember there was a severe lack of help there in general, especially for a poor white fat woman. There were few churches that did any outreach.
There was a time I went to a Vocational Rehabilitation career counselor, he yelled at me to "lose weight" and wouldn't help me with job placement or anything else. I went to a VR career counselor in another town who told me to become a residential counselor, because they were "desperate" and would hire anyone. Since I was on the verge of homelessness, I followed this advice and it saved me from homelessness, but my long term readers know how horrible that went. There was constant abuse.
My life as a residential counselor did not go well. When I look back, I am in shock, I needed to be in a group home myself having someone help me. You do want you have to, to stay alive, even if that means cloaking for an autistic woman or trying to hide severe health problems, which only got worse.
Later, I was working class in my small town and husband had stable employment during those years, most of the time I did not need any help. I got 8-9 years as a "normal person" who felt part of normal society. I was very sick and faced those problems but life at least felt more secure, We had some years here, where we were working class, on and off here. We had a few years until 2023, where we didn't have to go to any food pantries. When my husband was an assistant newspaper editor at a small town newspaper, I didn't expect for the poverty to get so bad. I thought we would make it.
My old small town did not have much charity help. There were only two food pantries and they handed out dried beans and peanut butter. There was a Salvation Army where they served some meals, but it was upstairs, and by my last year there where we did become poor after his job lay-offs, I couldn't do stairs easily. We turned more to my church for any food--we had a shared food pantry. As people here know I never wanted to leave, but rural America is being decimated.
Most of the time it didn't affect my life, since we were financially stable for the most part. I do remember thinking why is there so little help here. I had friends who went to the one room "free clinic" from time to time and many were very undertreated. I do think a lot of my small town friends died young [40s-50s, I have outlived some of the even in the shape I am in] due to lack of medical insurance and consistent health care.
My old small town declined so badly. One friend a few years ago, told me, "Don't move back here, it's desolate!". I wrote about how when I looked them up on Google Maps a few years ago, that everything was shut down, barely any businesses were opened. They got a huge homeless encampment going there too for a time, and that was shut down and pushed out somehow--the population there is pretty conservative and some of the wealthier ones, do have negative views of poor people.
Some churches here do help, so I was fortunate this town due to the wealth had some more programs for people. Before Covid there were some community dinners, we used those off and on as needed, but that stayed shut down after Covid.
Well I found out the more recent HUD cut off, we both are above even just on Social Security for both of us. Around 15 years ago, I came up on a HUD list, that lady told us, we were too close to the cut off then, within 500 dollars. We were okay with staying in private so we just continued on. Oddly I have noticed few married people in HUD buildings, do the low cut-offs keep them out? HUD is far more direct at least they go person by person for apartments on a fairer basis, unlike the housing program I was on the list for. Maybe some places you have to "know" someone to get in. Who knows? You always feel there's some secret you aren't in the know about. The social work world may work like the job world. If you're not connected, out you go.
I found this great job program for my husband, it sounded right up his alley, remember he has been in very low paid gig employment and this worsened after he had his contract job lay off too. One place is slowly shutting down and has far less work, and he does some freelance articles for 40 bucks an article. He works a lot but he doesn't make much. There are expenses too. Anyhow this place had jobs for seniors where they put you in offices, it paid around 11 an hour. He had the right skills. Not much money but it would be a stable 40 hours a week. Even there, we got some insane cut-off told to us. "You don't qualify". No one could afford to even live in this town on the cut-off they gave us. The only elderly person that could qualify for this, would already have to be in subsidized housing or living with relatives.
Keeping my apartment clean has gotten harder and harder. I complain about housework. Today since I can't walk, I made lunch and did dishes from my walker. Desperation and fear gets me to clean it to a certain level but it takes pain to do it.
We get inspections all the time here which usually means a week of misery, and extreme pain. I do not get to live at the cleanliness level I want to live, because my body will not cooperate. He's sick too and on a rollator walker now to function as well--leg problems. In the last couple of years, I cleaned out a lot of stuff and took it to thrift, even last week, after we had a plumbing issue, we were forced to clean stuff out of the closets and I got rid of 6 trash bags worth of papers and other stuff that had been boxed up in the closet.
It has been a life-long issue. No amount of will power or forcing myself is going to make this place as clean as it should be. I stare at the baseboards and have daydreams about little elves showing up to clean the place out. Around 7 years ago, I applied to get a home health aide and wrote them a letter telling them my husband had health problems. He was having a hard time with the caretaking and we really could use a home health aide to help us with housework, laundry and cleaning.
This society kind of stinks, not to help disabled and elderly people with housework or make it possible for us to get it done. This time, I was told, "you make too much", That was laughable. These people acted like I could go out and hire a cleaning person. I would have already if I could. There's no realism in these programs. Probably 30 percent of the people who end up on Hoarders simply got too sick to clean and gave up. I can throw things away without a problem.
One disabled lady I know tired to get a home cleaning person but for some reason they sent the cleaner from 40 miles away. Who is going to keep a minimum wage job that far away? Whoever set that up was clueless, she gave up, because all her cleaning people never showed up or called off, probably even lacking the gas money to get to her house. She has no one to help her with the cleaning now.
I've talked about another health program I considered going into, age 55 and above, people with severe health problems, they offer house services, medical, cook you some meals, and offer recreation. My motive was to give my husband relief too from constant care-taking duties as his own health is suffering. It's to keep people out of the nursing home which yes I am worried about.
There too, insane cut-offs, no one could live on that amount of money or even afford an apartment in my town. It's weird they advertise the program to keep you in your home, but the financials are crazy. So I never went into this program though I definitely wanted some of their help as they offered physical therapy and other things that could have been very useful to my life. Here too, if I went into the program, they probably would want me paying thousands I don't have. Why am I punished for being married?
When middle class and wealthy people design these programs, they seem to have no inkling of how people actually live or how little we live on or how much things cost. THEY ASK FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE ALL THE TIME.
Disabled people are probably figuring out now we are in an austerity society, we aren't going to be helped anymore. Plan accordingly. I feel for anyone who is paralyzed or faces different disabilities. Think about me, no hearing aid for the last 6 years, my ears got too bad for my last set of hearing aids, they don't work anymore. The ear doctor the last time I was there said, "They make hearing aids for hearing loss as severe as yours now". I laughed and said, "Well, maybe if I win the Lotto!" The last set I got from some charity but they shut things down years ago. There probably was too many people desperate for hearing aids.
Remember I see a doctor house call service, that specializes in the housebound, elderly and severely ill. They do get other super-sized people. Even they can't access me hearing aids and things I need though about 12 years ago they did get me some physical therapy I needed, a hospital bed and have gotten me medical machines over the years.
My mobility is in bad trouble, so I'll never afford a scooter or lift I need. I got one in the 1990s, my husband would have to lift into the car but now he wouldn't be able to do that and that one is long ago dead and gone. I managed to walk on a walker, but these days from my autoimmune disorders where I wake up and a muscle decides not to work right, and yes it can happen that quick, are very very scary. My apartment is not wheelchair accessible. That was one reason I was trying to get the senior/disabled apartment to plan ahead.
One thing I noticed over the years from my 20s on to now in my late 50s is the social work agencies I would go to, would hand me a piece of paper with phone numbers, "call these people" and then you'd call or visit those places to get a new set of numbers on a new piece of paper. It went in a circle. This happened to me with the aging agency, they gave me a list of programs from the health program to another disability program I never understood.
It was maddening. A lot of people seemed to be paid a lot of money to compile a lot of paperwork and forms but I started wondering how many poor people were really getting help. This may sound cynical but a lot of agencies, seemed more busy paying salaries, making hand-outs and managing paperwork then really offering any concrete help.
. Everything was a weeding out, and "you aren't qualified" or "you make too much". Some rules were so complex, they were impossible to understand. The answer was always NO. Now one thing to remember about me, is I do not look healthy. One can tell looking at me I am not a normal fat person, my weight distribution is extreme, I have Michelin man lumps, I am covered in huge rashes from my autoimmune disorders. A person can tell I am sick. I walk on a walker and I am deaf and have to talk to all people via a transcription phone. If I am going to be turned down... who do they help? I don't want to be an object of pathos. But I had that thought, who do these social workers help if not someone with obvious physically seeable disabilities? Are loud narcissistic drug addicts getting in the door? I don't know.
I'm a resourceful person, I got hearing aids before and eyeglasses before. I know how to get stuff for free legally like cookware and other household items from Buy Nothing. I've been creative in getting things I needed, like buying used art supplies, and finding ways to find supersized clothing.
Sometimes I do wake up and ask, why aren't we allowed to have enough money to survive and even have necessities. Disability checks are almost worthless now. I have told other nearly disabled people don't go on disability if you can help it. It means poverty. You want to avoid it if at all possible. I said this to at least three young people with more moderate health problems than me. Don't do it if you can work at all.
I'm scared for the future as inflation shoots up. This article was written in bits and pieces over some weeks. Some may say "Oh there, she goes complaining again!" but hey this blog is about dealing with reality, there's a lot of crazy stuff happening and as people get poorer, at least there may be a few voices talking about what's going down. One way I have survived a very hard life, is to analyze some of this stuff and ask what to do about it.
I am in really bad shape today. My leg decided to say "Screw you, I don't want to work today". Most will blame my immobility on being fat but I was walking across a small yard to do some painting four days ago on my walker. I have two conditions that cause myositis. I hide a lot of pain from people. Some may say okay you can type this article, but I've worked on it on and off for days or weeks collapsing in between time.
Everything is a dead end most of the time. America is a falling apart economy and now there's far more homeless and desperate people. Things were bad enough 15 years ago and back to the 1990s. Some will tell me the social workers are trying their best, well they aren't paid very much. One sincere man helped me with housing stuff, but he hit the same dead ends, I did. The place I was on the housing list for, wouldn't return his phone calls, I'm not sure what that was about. My whole take on most of the social work world outside a few good organizations and basic welfare, is that there is more an appearance of doing stuff than actually doing it. Why is help so hard to get? Why is it so complicated? Why is the system designed this way?
They did lower the cut offs for welfare and food stamps under Biden, few people know this. Our prices went up by 50-100 percent, but the cut-offs are at pre-Covid levels. Trump obviously is cutting welfare and access to programs even more massively. I fear for Medicare D, and another medicine program. Section 8 is now going to put timelines on housing. We don't have Section 8 here. One rule I read is that a family can't live in Section 8 more than two years, why even bother when the waiting lists are 10 to 15 years long? So expect things to get even more rough. Too many newly poor people who are laid off, are going to find out there's not as much help as they think there is. The old poor know things have sucked for some time, The new poor are going to be in shock!
It ties into the lousy job system. During years husband had more secure income, I needed less help. How many jerks behind desks even put me this position? That's now failing as I have written on the economy here. Some formerly well-off and middle class people aren't going to realize how the system really works and they are going to be disappointed. As the job system falls and it is right now with endless lay-offs, the streets ARE going to fill with the homeless and already are.
And why aren't there any job placement programs, one agency could make sure of criminal records and medical ability and then find jobs for people or even assign them if needed or if the person failed in the first place at getting a job. The system doesn't take into account how rampant discrimination is happening over age, moderate to mild health problems, looks, mild obesity, and more. People are getting sidetracked, but I noticed in the social work world people seemed to have forgotten about the term job placement instead of pushing people into a dead end job search process. This reminds me of those told to find an apartment with section 8 vouchers in that one book on homelessness I read, they got the vouchers but all the landlords turned them down. Why push people into the same job system that left them unemployed from before?
With the ghost jobs of today and the endless AI disappearance of resumes, I doubt this has improved. The corporations are more busy giving jobs to H1-B for tax cuts instead of hiring Americans. You ever noticed they never confront the weaknesses of the job system and why so many people are closed out? They also never address that many of the poor and desperate now are working!
They won't realize the "weeding" out element of it all. An example of this, is one charity told me, "We will pay your electric bill only if you have a shut off notice", I had run up a giant electric bill a couple year ago from cold weather and was way behind. This is what they told me. I decided to enter this weird payment plan with the electric company where I had to pay 50 bucks a month for over a year to keep the lights on. I paid it off. The electric bill is paid up now. If one needs machines to live, having it shut off is a bit risky.
I called once, hoping a senior or disabled apartment would come up, and asked if there was any agency to help move disabled people. I didn't want to burden friends unless I had to. We are too disabled to move furniture. I was in shock when I was told there was nothing like this. I remember one friend from the 2000s, telling me she had to go to the Red Cross to get help moving from one disabled apartment to another in another state. It's shocking some of the things like that, why don't they help with that sort of thing or make it possible. What do very old and sick people do? I'm not moving now at least, so that's a moot point.
My husband and I now joke about the social work world. "Don't bother" is our mantra now. He tells me, "Don't waste your time trying to get help from them". I searched for cheap apartments and wrote about how that went. Sometimes I've asked for help and gotten some, like with eyeglasses and leg bandages for my compression machine they wanted a thousand dollars for but we know the answer is NO. Some food pantries are okay and things like that but I've gotten realistic about this stuff.
Americans are being made desperate, and they have succeeded in separating us all from each other. Our rich families don't care about us even if we become poor. My mother had it in her power to help my husband get a middle-class job years and years ago. The pastors want your money, my second IFB that's all that guy cared about. The churches want dues, tithes, etc.
We have some friends who have helped us, thank you friends. I would rather have been able to give rather than be in constant need. The social safety net is fraying and is nearly gone. This feels like a very dangerous country to live in for a very disabled person.
My own situations have been very hard but this kind of thing has happened to many others. Some of the stuff I have seen has troubled me. Remember in my case, I have basic medical care, and am housed in a safe area. I get scared for people. It's getting bad out there.
Here are times I have seen others turned away from by social workers in some shocking scenarios:
I have seen plenty of people go through even worse than I have.
One homeless online acquaintance was in a wheelchair, and ignored and no one would help her. She had severe Ethos Danlos syndrome. The homeless shelter wanted people to walk a mile to go where they served food, she couldn't do it and had disabilities that made rolling her manual wheelchair that far impossible. She sat on the streets in her wheelchair for hours, and told me about it. She was able to find some shared housing later, but I always wondered what happened to her. She disappeared and sometimes I fear the worse. If she still reads this blog, please write me, so I know how you are doing.
I heard about people calling APS on demented parents who were hoarders, and who had become homeless or who were on the verge of eviction and nothing was done. They told them the parents had the "right" to live this way. Some of these parents were abusive and they feared them showing up on their doorstep. Some of these parents were even offered trailers or were signed up for housing by their adult children which the senile or abusive parent refused. They were given every excuse under the sun why they couldn't help the parent. An elderly person in severe mental and physical health was left to fend for themselves in the streets.
Years ago I used to write to another homeless woman. I believe she is schizophrenic and she has serious problems. She definitely was an ACON and abuse victim though in her case she may have some personality disorder problems as a result. I don't talk to her anymore I sent her a box of food once and few clothing items, and a little money, I think it was 10 dollars, it was all I could spare. She has a YouTube channel and rants and raves in the streets, screaming about perps and thinking everyone who wears red is out to get her. I have thought why won't anyone help this person and get her some mental health care. She has detractors all over the internet who make fun of her and call her a scammer. Some of her detractors yell at her to get a job, she is far too ill to maintain any employment. She needs to be in a group home or something. Some time ago, I was curious and wondered what happened to her. Years and years later, there she remained, doing her channel, and screaming in the streets and still homeless.
She does get money from people from her Youtube channel. She's been out on the streets for YEARS. Nothing is done, and she's been in police stations and homeless shelters, but she's left to rot in the streets. If you want to see the utter and complete failure of the social work system there you go. I wrote some people on youtube channels who were talking about her, and I said "Would it help to contact anyone, at least show them the channel to get her help?" They said they had contacted agencies, and other help for her, but nothing ever was done.
I once called some social workers on behalf of this newly disabled guy who got evicted from my apartment, to help save some of his stuff. They told me, "We don't do that!". That guy lost everything and ended up leaving town. I think a friend helped him.
There are cases of online Lipedema friends I had who went through absolute hell. Some are deceased. They were denied medical care, or too far from it, or couldn't get mobility devices. One ended up in abusive housing situation and was trying to escape. There seemed to be no outside help for her at all. Stage 4 Lipedema brought many bad things to people. And often fat bigotry influenced the lack of help. I had a spouse to rescue me from the worse, others did not. Some of these people I would try to help with advice but they hit dead end after dead end.
Then you hear about some of these cities that get millions of dollars to help the homeless. Some of them buy a few tents or maybe a few better cities get some tiny-homes set up in a complex, but most of the time the problem grows worse, and there's no help for the homeless out there. Every American who is honest about it knows homelessness especially in bigger cities is skyrocketing.
I follow this man named Kevin Dahlgren on X, he is a homeless advocate. We don't agree politically on some things, but he definitely exposes some of the problems in the homeless world. How the homeless are ignored and many social workers and organizations are saying they are "doing something" but you never see anything change.
In another post he wrote about how one city's homeless advocates were all taking an international trip to Vienna. Wouldn't that pay for some housing for a few homeless people? If you look up the number of grants and millions handed these organizations over time you get the feeling, most of the money is going to 6 figure salaries, endless seminars, and not to any of the poor. He warns about the homeless industrial complex, and I think he's right about that. Tons of money is being poured into it, but no real changes or help is happening.
I don't agree with him where he seems to think most of the homeless are addicts, maybe they are in Portland, but it's easy to become homeless now, all it takes is one job lay-off or negative event. I wrote and told him direct, not all the homeless are drug addicts though SOME of them are. The economy is crashing in America.
I won't go into these details again, but when I wrote about the abused kids shown on Youtube, there was social services failure written all over those cases. Some kids were already in the system and sent home to live with abusers.
A lot of things aren't working now. People are 'weeded" out, the paperwork is hard and convoluted. Even people with college degrees have a hard time with the paperwork and documentation needed for many of the agencies. There's many programs getting cut, and as the numbers of people who need help skyrocket, what's going to happen? I think we are already seeing evidence of overwhelmed programs.
Food pantries are handing out far less foods, that started happening some time ago. There's one food truck we used to use years ago that used to hand out at least 5-6 times as much as a person can get now.
People may discover that programs they thought they can depend on are no longer there. Sadly the Republican party often makes cuts to anything that helps the poor but then the Democratic party got more focused on identity politics, and other matters and abandoned the poor and working class long ago.
Many social workers do lean left, but I have noticed they are on the identity politics side of the equation more often than not. Maybe that is affecting programs and making them less effective, kind of in a "some animals are more equal than others" scenario, where certain populations are helped more than others. I don't know but it's one thing I wonder about. People should be able to get equal help and really ask where is all the money going as poverty gets worse and you see people going without help.
Where are the disability advocates when it comes to the increased poverty among poor disabled people? I was part of one group where I don't go to meetings anymore because they kept censoring my speech about Covid and worries about where things were going. Something has changed and not for the better. The poor and working class became invisible even as their numbers increased.
I looked up a mutual aid society to see if one existed in my town. There wasn't one. If I was a charismatic sort of person who had good social skills, maybe I'd start one but I don't have the health. Sometimes I think I am being too idealistic, in trying to find a working-class church that helps each other like I had back in my old rural town. That place may not exist around here. Hopefully some resourceful people can share resources, and combine households, we almost did with this one friend but some other factors have delayed this.
Sometimes I wonder why there isn't a movement for poorer people to join forces, and households to survive, or cook each other dinner-like a local dinner club where food could be shared, or more mutual sharing. Has our social system broken down that much? When I worked and lived in some ghetto areas, I noticed in many African American communities, that some of this happened, families took care of each other moving in their uncle or cousins and more. Some ladies in the neighborhood would make "plates" in Styrofoam and share food with neighbors. Sometimes it was free and sometimes they charged a small price that was very fair. There was still community and a sense of helping each other. I saw that in the church in my old small town in my 30s. We have lost that in America. Everyone lives too far away, as I have written about in other articles, many of us have no roots, we have no families. Everything has gotten too impersonal. We need some of this back.
