UU on the Ropes: The Frayed Safety Net

I keep finding myself unable to blog. It is not that I cannot find something to write about. There are plenty of things that are important to me, not the least of which is living out my Unitarian Universalist faith in the green and the LGBTQ communities. I write the posts in my head, but am bogged down by the thoughts of more immediate concern. If one were to look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I have hit bottom. A catastrophic fall a year ago means that I do not have an income. Through the generosity of my girlfriend Kimberly, and the co-owners of her house, I have been staying rent free. Going through the public health system to recover from my accident, meant being bounced back and forth between the county hospital and the county clinic for months, with no movement to actually fix discs pressing on my spinal cord in two places was its own punishment. Believe it or not, mental health through the county is remarkably better. That, too, has its own story.

Although I was very embarrassed to have hit so low, I finally applied for food stamps late last fall. The rhetoric against people on food stamps plus a healthy dose of denial and shame kept me from applying sooner. I was too embarrassed to apply for cash aid at the same time. Since I did have no income, nor disability, I finally for cash aid from the county a few weeks later. I had to see a county contracted doctor, first. I was awarded the cash aid, General Relief or GR, in December.

This past Christmas was my leanest yet. My mother and father each sent a bit of money. Since I had to provide bank statements I just knew that they would figure out if I deposited money in the bank.

Mistake number one: I misplaced a report that I received at the end of December, which I was to fill out and declare income including gifts. I was notified that my cash aid would end because I had not turned in the report. So I turned it in at the county office before the threatened day at the end of January.

Mistake number two: Being honest, I declared the small bit of money. I then needed documentation about the money I received for Christmas. I had to as my mother and father each to write a letter declaring that they gave me money for Christmas, and that it was a one time deal. Now, we are after the January 31 deadline. I went down to the county office, and turned it in. The worker was so nice. She said that she would put the paperwork in right away.

A few days later, I received three letters. One that they county overpaid me, and that they would be reducing the aid over the next several months to recover the loss. The overpayment was more than the amount one of my parents gave me. I suspect that it was the February money that was deposited on the 10th. The second letter said that my cash aid had been reinstated. The third letter said that it was discontinued.

By this time I am seriously confused. I did what they asked. It came to my attention that I would also need an outside referral from the county office. I called for more information and was told that I needed go down to the county office to fix the general relief before I could use the outside referral. I made an appointment, saw another worker. He said the GR should have been fixed, and gave the name of the worker in charge of facilitating the outside other service. He seemed convinced that the GR issue would be straightened out.

I made an appointment to see the referral worker, with stipulation that the GR be fixed, later that week. She told me to call her before the appointment to verify it had been restored. I called on the appointment day, and it had not been restored. So we made an appointment for the following week. We are now in the month of March.

Thankfully, I saw the worker for the outside referral even though the cash aid situation was not fixed the following week. After the appointment, I stood in the customer service line at the county office again so that they could tell me what I needed to do next. Apparently, they lost the copy of my ID. Now since I applied for the food stamps separately, they did have a copy of my ID scanned into the system. The kind young man printed it out, and submitted it for me.

March tenth, the day that the money becomes available, I took that card to make a withdrawal. I’ve been really stressing at this point with no cash, and no money in my bank accounts. It had the $5 balance from last month.

I waited for another week to call again. This time I called the main number. The worker told me that the GR continued to be cancelled, and not only that, due to the foul up, my food stamps, as well. Up until this point, the food stamps had been working.

Several days later, I called the main number again. This worker told me that I would have to go in to the county office again. I asked if it was better to just go straight in, or to make an appointment. He told me to make an appointment, so I made an appointment for the following day, March 17.

I got in line to check in. I was relieved that it was still in time for the appointment when I started to check in. The worker put in my information and told me my case was closed. She told me that if I came in the day before, I could have fixed it. No exceptions.

I went to the application line to start the process over. I sat down and the tears came running down. The pain, the paperwork, the frustration, the money anxiety, all got to me. I heard my name called relatively quickly, after 30 minutes or so. I went to the window, but the person was not there. The woman at that front of that line got testy as she thought I was cutting in. I waited a few minutes with the woman glaring at me. I went to the customer service window to see if my name had been called. On the first day that I applied, the fingerprinting worker garbled my name so badly, I had no idea it was me. It was not until the last call announcement, that I realized that they were calling me. So, the customer service guy called me up. I showed him my papers and asked if I’d been called. He told me, no. He noted that I’d been there only 45 minutes and the process takes at least 2 hours.

I went back to my seat, weeping profusely. I heard my name called again. I went in to see the worker. I just could not stop crying. I tried to explain what was going on. He went away, and came back after discussing my case with a supervisor. It should not have been closed. He also made me fill out a depression questionnaire and was going to make me see that worker. I assured him that I did not need to see them. He told me he was denying the current application, but that I should call back in 4 days. I started bawling at this point, and exasperated, he told me that the supervisor will fix the old case so that I could start receiving the cash aid as of March 1. Mollified, I went home.

I called him on the following Thursday. As it had not yet been reinstated, he gave me the name and number of a supervisor. He told me that he’d look into it and call back. He gave me the name of another supervisor. That supervisor looked into it, and said he’d call back. I’ve called him three times since. As of today, April 4, the case is not resolved. He told me today that it is not my fault and he is continuing to monitor it. He actually tried to call in a favor. I asked him to check on the status of the food stamps as I had not been shopping.

Thankfully, since I did apply food stamps and GR separately, the food stamps are intact. Welfare is a punitive system. The workers are harried from the sheer number of applications, but ultimately they are doing the best that they can, and they are kind. The worse part of this is all of the man hours by the county for just under $200 per month. I will have to be fingerprinted again.

The food and shelter are okay for now. I’m boiling up a pot of beans as I finish this up. This is just the tip of the iceberg. My multiple identities are all intact, but battered. I am still at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy. I’ve just been unable to do higher ordered thinking. The best I can do is pin pretty pictures that inspire me, and hope to inspire others that way.

Update 4/15/2014

After being the squeaky wheel, and then giving some time for the supervisor to track things down, he called me back this past Tuesday. The case was back on track, and I’d need to come in to get fingerprinted again. Five hours waiting, and a panic that I would not make my next appointment, and I gave my fingerprints and another photo on Thursday. There was no money in the account again.

I called the supervisor today. He told me my case must be jinxed. This saga was due to clerical error. Although my fingerprint request was marked urgent by another supervisor on Thursday, the fingerprints were still not attached to my file.

He asked for my number again, and said he’d call me back. As he did before, I’m going to trust that he will call back. In the meantime, I found this tidbit about SNAP, which could be said for cash benefits as well:

"Two-thirds of all SNAP payment errors are a result of caseworker error. Nearly one-fifth are underpayments, which occur when eligible participants receive less in benefits than they are eligible to receive." Feeding America.org

Update 4/17/2014 Mr. Frykholm came through. I am so grateful for his perseverance and referral to other supervisors to help when I came in. It was not perfect, as there are humans at every level. Still, that one person cared enough, or was conscientious enough to see this through. I will not be missing anymore deadlines.

30 Days of Love: From Pinterest With Love

I have been recovering for the past twelve months from a freak accident, falling out of a second story loft. It has been difficult to write at all. I am so grateful that I finished seminary before the accident. That does not mean that I have been off of social media completely. My favorite, Twitter, has been hit and miss, at best. I used to read upwards of 20-30 news articles a day, and tweet links to them. I am now on twitter a tiny fraction of the time. There has been an upside to being forced to slow down. This past year, Pinterest taught me that I am a visual person. Through Pinterest, I can curate what amounts to a love letter of pictures, stories, and videos.

There are two pictures that informed my “pinning” from very early on. The first is of a young woman with a sign that reads, “I need inclusive intersectional feminism because I had to scroll through five pages to see the face of another woman of color.” Five pages. Coming from my own social location of a queer, multicultural, feminist, Unitarian Universalist, her point struck me. A feminist board, “Feminism/Inspiring Strong Women,” on Pinterest followed. Those pins focus on why feminism is necessary, show women heroes, role models, and those who never got credit in their lifetime.

The second picture is of a young trans individual whose sign reads, “I need feminism if it will fight for trans people and women of color.” This is another valid criticism of feminism. The trans community is shut out of many women’s events, and even discussions.  The pins on my board, “Queer Inspiration and Affirmation,” are multicultural. As a cis lesbian, I cannot heal the divide between straight women, lesbians and trans women. That work needs to be done face to face. I can, however, make a place that mirrors those of us not from the dominant culture, rather than a window looking in as most boards are.

There is one last picture that I saw recently that inspired one more board. The picture frames a just married lesbian couple jumping in the air.  I had been collecting pictures of just married lesbians on an invisible board. The joy in their faces was so infectious that I created “Brides x2," for all those who had to wait to have their relationships acknowledged by society.

The three boards are love letters to those women who do not fit the dominant cultural expectations of their time, today or yesterday. They are smart, adventurous, brave, strong, and beautiful for being themselves.

Two Lovely Brides

My Coming Out Story (2012)

I am coming out to love again. As most of us in the LGBTQ community know, coming out is a continual process. I first came out at the end of a short marriage to a man. I could no longer live the straight life. I was almost thirty and was deep in the abyss of depression.

The minister of the UU church and the gay and lesbian group at church were enormously supportive. With the church group I worked on the No on 22 campaign. Unfortunately, California voted to pass proposition 22, to define marriage between a man and a woman.

After a couple of years I met my beloved. We were classmates then friends and our relationship evolved into an abiding love. We entered into a domestic partnership and had a commitment ceremony in 2002. Her mother and sister attended. Mine did not, not wanting to condone my lifestyle. At the time, I was not out to my father.

In 2007, I decided to heed the call to ministry. While waiting for the following fall semester, marriage equality resurfaced. Prop 22 was struck down, allowing a window of time to legally marry. My beloved and I worked for marriage equality, I with the faith community and she with the Asian and Pacific Islander community.

The week marriage became legal, my beloved and I were in line the first day licenses were available. We were mentioned in UU World, pictured on the front page of the local paper, interviewed for another paper, and filmed for a documentary show in the Philippines. We joyously married that Saturday with our UU congregation in attendance. My mother and sister, once again, did not attend. My father, however, was happily in attendance.

The passage of proposition 8 did not nullify our marriage. The significance of that became real when my beloved had an aneurism in January of 2010. The weeks of surgery, coma, recriminations, familial homophobia, friends’ internalized homophobia, and need for blame landed squarely on me, especially when I made the impossibly difficult decision to take her off life support after hesitating in fear of her family. Three major strokes after an aneurism had to be enough. The loss was devastating.

***

This past month I have started a ministry for LGBTQ folks in Los Angeles, starting small with a twitter feed and a meet-up, to honor her, and the relationship we had. There needs to be a safe place for people to go when something so devastating happens and other LGBTQ people will understand as the regular church may not be able to. Conversely, the LGBTQ community can come together with the regular church community in celebration.

So I am coming out to love again. I have begun to trust that love is possible with a wonderful woman I began dating this summer. I am honoring my beloved with a ministry to bring together the LGBTQ folks in LA to get to know one another, and build community.

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