#welfare programs

I’ve been on government assistance programs my whole life. I have never lived above the poverty line.

It’s a system that doesn’t care about my wellbeing, they care about doing the bare minimum to keep people alive enough to function and work, and if you’re disabled and cannot work, they give significantly less of a fuck.

And benefits?? What benefits?

Food stamps that run out within two weeks because I am budgeting with 8$ a day with literally dozens of dietary restrictions? Or do you mean the housing voucher that I have to never even have a gift card, penny to my name, Sams club membership, phone bill, literally anything that could be “income” in order to qualify? That same housing voucher system that if I mess up even once with I not only lose all government aid for at least 5 years, it’s also mandatory PRISON time for 1 year?? “Oh but they would never do that, right?” Nope! I have several friends who are now felons for minor lease violations and unhoused as a result! Oh maybe you mean the state health insurance that doesn’t cover most treatments, specialists, and testing I need and if I tried to make a gofundme to cover, I would lose aforementioned housing? Oh and we can’t forget all the money I get for being disabled, which is exactly 0$. I’m still fighting for SSI and have been for 6 years! That’s over 6 years with absolutely zero income. ZERO. And guess what, whenever I *do* get on SSI, I will lose my housing voucher. And I won’t be able to afford my current apartment because even in subsidized low income housing it’s too expensive for the maximum SSI “benefit” amount. And on SSI you can’t have savings over 2000$. Oh and they do make housing for people who are low income where you pay 30% of your income but I can’t even be on the waitlist since I don’t have any income. And on top of all this, I can never get married because I’ll lose all of the programs.

I could keep going. That’s not even half of the programs I’m a part of.

• None of them give me cash in hand. Even for vouchers I have to provide receipts for everything.

• Food stamps just straight up won’t even cover ineligible items. Which includes hot foods.

• I genuinely don’t believe that there’s a way to “game the system” and why would you? You would gain literally nothing.

• It’s designed to keep people poor. Once you make over a certain amount, you lose all or almost all benefits. There’s no way to slowly transition out of the programs, if you’re someone who’s able to. It’s all in or all out.

In Uttar Pradesh, 1.88 lakh anganwadis out of a sanctioned 1.9 lakh are operating. Some sanctioned centres are inoperative in a few other states too.

Twitter/ @NITIAayog

The Anil Agarwal Foundation, run by Vedanta, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have announced a project in partnership with the Centre to upgrade 500 anganwadi centres in Uttar Pradesh, stirring concerns about the fate of the key welfare programme.

Anganwadis provide supplementary nutrition and several health services to children aged 3 to 6 and their mothers apart from informal pre-school education.

The Anil Agarwal Foundation is the philanthropic arm of mining company Vedanta Ltd, which tried to allay the apprehensions that are being fuelled by a perceived lack of transparency. Compounding the perception challenge is the Narendra Modi government’s ham-handed approach towards privatisation in general, which has made it a controversial subject and source of mistrust.

A stated reason for a corporate role is the government’s inability to provide adequate funds for the welfare programme but it is not clear yet how much money the foundations will invest in the upgrade programme.

Vedanta told The Telegraph the upgraded anganwadi centres would continue to be managed by the staff engaged under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) of the ministry of women and child development (MoWCD).

“In collaboration with MoWCD, both the foundations have taken up the mantle of modernisation of the anganwadis with state-of-the-art infrastructure and services to the last mile for women and children,” a Vedanta spokesperson said in an email.

Vedanta added: “Both the foundations are jointly working towards building model anganwadis that can be piloted and replicated. The anganwadi centres are upgraded with infrastructure and amenities and continue to be run by the anganwadi staff of ICDS, MoWCD, for creating greater impact in lives of the women and child beneficiaries.”

The spokesperson said the idea was to upgrade the anganwadis to the level of the Nand Ghars --- child care centres run by Vedanta as a corporate social responsibility. The Vedanta website says it has opened 1,700 Nand Ghars across the country since 2015.

“These anganwadis are being developed as per the MoU between Nand Ghar and MoWCD. The idea behind Nand Ghars is to develop modernised anganwadis that be used as a model for replication across all anganwadis by the Govt,” the email said.

“Global philanthropic institutions like BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) have also offered a helping hand to this initiative. Niti Aayog is doing a study on how the model can be replicated and integrated across the country.”

The Left parties have described the initiative as a move towards privatisation of the anganwadi centres.

“And now, Modi government pushed privatisation of anganwadis after handing over food grains procurement to his corporate friends,” the CPM tweeted on Tuesday.

The CPI said the partnership was part of a government plan to reduce funds for public welfare schemes and gradually withdraw from them.

“The ICDS scheme provides nutrition and early childhood education and care to crores of poor children. Its facilities may not be great but it is running,” A.R. Sindhu, general secretary of CPM labour arm Citu, said.

“There is scope for improvement. But by involving the private companies, the government wants to wash off its role. Ultimately, the welfare scheme will suffer.”

Amarjeet Kaur of CPI workers’ wing Aituc said the government was underfunding the ICDS.

“The government is preparing the ground for privatisation. As of now, it’s unable to give adequate funding. So, many anganwadi centres have a dearth of facilities,” she said.

“After sometime, the government will say the Nand Ghar model is doing well and all the government facilities are redundant. They will close the anganwadis.”

Kaur referred to the recently approved National Education Policy (NEP), which recommends the creation of school complexes that would absorb the anganwadis.

India’s 13.79 lakh anganwadi centres, mostly set up in the rural areas, now operate independently, away from primary schools. The NEP says that spending on teachers and resources for small, one-off schools has become economically unviable.

It suggests “the establishment of a grouping structure called the school complex, consisting of one secondary school together with all other schools offering lower grades in its neighbourhood including anganwadis, in a radius of 5 to 10km”.

Apart from such an arrangement increasing the distance between homes and the anganwadis (and primary schools), activists and Left parties fear the government will hand over the new anganwadis at the complexes to private parties.

Ashok Rao, a social activist associated with the NGO Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute that supplies food to anganwadi centres in Delhi, opposed the closure or privatisation of anganwadi centres.

He said the private sector can be brought in only to help train anganwadi staff or enhance the infrastructure at these centres.

A parliamentary standing committee has highlighted the poor funding for women and children’s welfare.

Its report on the women and child development ministry’s demand for grants for 2020-21 says the overall allocation for the ministry has remained unchanged at around one per cent of the budget for the past five years although women and children make up 67.7 per cent of the population. It calls this “a cause of serious concern and introspection”.

In Uttar Pradesh, 1.88 lakh anganwadis out of a sanctioned 1.9 lakh are operating. Some sanctioned centres are inoperative in a few other states too.

The parliamentary committee has recommended that the ministry take the matter up with the states and try and remove any bottlenecks. It has stressed the need to have more anganwadi centres in urban areas.

This photograph was taken #OTD in 1969 at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services building on Grand Avenue near Adams Boulevard. 

On May 21, 1969, over 2,000 members of the Social Workers Union joined forces with welfare rights advocates to conduct lunch-hour protests outside of forty regional social services buildings in Los Angeles County. The protesters were seeking to persuade county social service officials to postpone and reform plans to reorganize the county’s program for aid to families with dependent children. 

How To Start at Rock Bottom: Welfare Programs and the Social Safety Net

Income inequality is a real thing. Let’s start there. We are not all starting on a level playing field. In fact, some are actually starting at rock bottom.

Whatever way you define rock bottom, it’s a shitty place to start when envisioning your financial future. And it’s a frightening reality for many Americans. Giving advice about how my fellow college-educated Millennials can get ahead in their careers, defeat their student loans, and buy homes is all well and good. But it’s utterly useless advice for someone with no education, no family support, and no job prospects to speak of. It’s useless to those drowning in medical debt or responsible for supporting a family on a minimum wage salary.

You can’t think about Step 1 when you’re currently at Step -37. Those living at rock bottom need to achieve a basic standard of survival before they can think about “getting ahead.”

Keep reading.

These are mandatory forms for General Assistance, which pays for my rent, household needs ($45) and some food (100$).

I am disabled and have been fighting for SSI since 2017. Once I am eventually approved, I have to use my backpay to pay back a portion of this (about 1/3 of my backpay, my lawyer gets another 1/3, I get whats left).

In order to have housing (after YEARS of homelessness) I have to waive my rights to confidentiality for my own medical records.

Note that “phone bills” are misspent money. I am entirely reliant on someone else’s kindness to be on their phone plan. This had to be approved by my GA caseworker. I NEED a phone, not just for my dozens of appointments to manage my life threatening chronic health conditions and serious mental illnesses, but also to call the pharmacy, to call my landlord, DHHS, heating assistance programs, case management and therapy, AND, of course, for my monthly general assistance appointment. Yes. They REQUIRE me to have a phone AND I cannot pay for it. I have zero income since I’m unable to work anyways.

What happens if I “misuse” these theoretical funds? Federal prison time, a mandatory minimum of 1 year, PLUS disqualification of all government services for up to 5 years.