green: raven (Default)
green ([personal profile] green) wrote2011-10-15 10:58 am

started to write a post about the GOP candidates, ended up writing about being poor

The state of America at the moment is not what keeps me awake at night. It's the state of my family. My mother recently retired to help me take care of my 15 yo disabled daughter while I go to school to try to get an education so I can be employable. Our income is fixed and meager. I don't have a job for a variety of reasons, one of them being that I never had a job while I was married and now I have no marketable skills -- but I'm too young to qualify for a displaced homemaker's grant. The government cut our food stamps when I started going back to school - just because I am a student now. Gas to get to school is expensive and there's no public transportation where I live that I qualify for. Winter is coming and I have to buy warm clothes for myself and my daughter. I'm so afraid of something worse happening that I won't take out a student loan. What if my daughter's condition gets worse and I have to quit school? She needs new shoes; how will I pay for them? My mom pays for the internet out of her social security check, but my computer keeps overheating and will die soon, and my online emotional (and sometimes financial) support will be gone.
tempore: (Default)

[personal profile] tempore 2011-10-15 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm sorry you're going through a rough time. The thing that gets me is that they would cut food stamps while you're in school. I know it happens; I saw it happen when I was in school. So anyone who tries to say that people just need to get a job and do it themselves has no concept of how the system keeps people poor.

*hugs*
rusty_halo: my cat lucifer (l: lucifer)

[personal profile] rusty_halo 2011-10-15 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
*hugs*
calystarose: Callisto from Xena & a rose (Default)

[personal profile] calystarose 2011-10-15 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
*hugs*