The Gov't Considers Foster Parents to be Freeloaders?

Whoa...

The government is assigning foster parents to Workfare!

It's time to get nasty. 

When I was fourteen, my parents died and my younger sister and I were sent to live with our uncle. My sister ran away and I spent five years of my life trying to find her. 

At nineteen, I found her.  Shortly afterwards my boyfriend took me on a trip to Washington and I arrived to our destination and met his mother holding a wedding dress.  I ran from the minister.  Eventually, they pried me from the bathroom with the promise of dinner and an annulment.  Upon arriving home, he promised to take my sister in. 

We went to court and became foster parents. 

Because I was related to the sixteen year old child, we did not qualify for help from the government.  On the bright side, we were adopted by a local congregation. 

My sister aspired to be a model.  One member owned the premier modeling agency in the state and promised to help.  Another person was a dentist (who I refer to people to this very day).  Another person promised a scholarship to a private school. 

Then social services stepped in.  I was only nineteen and my husband was twenty-five, we were too young to take in my sister.  They gave her to a local pimp, despite our pleas.  The man tried to extort me for $400 a month (what his gov't subsidy for her would have been).  At one point, he tried raping me and when I smacked him down, he called the county on me. 

Due to the stupidity of an old social worker, who is undoubtedly stewing in hell right now my sister never finished high school.  She never became a legit model.  She never held a real job.  She's been beaten by other pimps.  She never lived her dream. 

She is now a well known local escort.  She is more plastic than woman now.  She's been arrested.  Her nickname is Roxanne and it is really freakin' hard not to break out in song upon seeing her. 

Why am I ranting? 

The government is screwing everything up. 

They did for my sister.

Workfare is really getting on my nerves.  I got a call from the county today and confused the heck out of the poor girl who returned my call.  I learned that if anyone applies for services of any sort, they are immediately entered into a twenty hour volunteer program to do unpaid labor for the community.  They must start work whether or not they are approved. 

Now, if one signs up for benefits (such as food stamps) because they are looking for work the last thing they can afford to do is take 20 hours out of their week to do menial service for the government that will lead nowhere.  If they have kids, it becomes another expense; how does one pay $10 an hour for daycare to earn $1 worth of food stamps? 

By volunteer, I mean it is mandatory unpaid services to the community.  They choose the days you work.  They choose your hours.  They choose what you do without regard to your physical capacity to do the job. 

There is no childcare, no transportation, no help.  There are no excuses, you either show up or you get kicked out of the system and have a black mark in a government database somewhere.   You also get verbally abused by government employees who never studied social science or psychology and do not have the faintest understanding of the realities of life. 

The thing about the childcare pisses me off.  If parents are workfaring due to a government mandate and kids are home alone, they can find themselves a heck of a lot of things to do, like drugs, getting pregnant, petty theft, anything except homework.  It is not a positive thing to have a latch key kid, especially if they are under fourteen. 

These social policies are penny wise and pound foolish!   Do they know that gov't policies are creating a cycle of dependency?  Boy gets addicted, boy depends on gov't assistance to survive.  Girls gets pregnant, it's workfare for her. 

Damn....

Besides, if the county welfare office says that kids under fourteen can't stay home alone how in the hell can the same county welfare office tell you that you have to work hours that the kids aren't in school for free with no childcare help? 

Why haven't people pitched a fit yet?   Our local government's right arm doesn't know what it's right thumb is doing!!!  

Let me be the first to tell you...

Foster care is a never-ending, thankless, community service job!  It is difficult to open up one's home to a child you do not know, one who could be troubled, one would could have connections with criminals and other scary people.  Like any parent, you're always on call...day, night, holidays and weekends.  There is little respite for a foster parent.

Why in the heck is the government trying to keep us from helping each other?  No wonder there is a foster care provider shortage!!! 

What are they up to? 

What 'cha want to bet they're trying to set up poorhouses again.  Workfare is the first step. 

It's got to go...

Either we are paying high taxes to help the poor or we are not.  It seems to me that we are paying for a burgeoning bureaucracy rather than help for the poor. 

Maybe I should take some of my liberal political buddies out for some tea. 

If they can't help the poor, then they ought to give us a tax cut. 

I'd hate to think God put me in this crappy situation so I would take up the cause.  

I did not even find it satisfying to know that should lawyers and accountants find themselves on food stamps, they could be required to take the jobs of the very morons who harassed me for nearly three years.  The rallying cry needs to be workplace protections for municipal (and all gov't) employees, including workfare recipients failing an end to the funding of this program.  I hope I don't have Stockholm's...it kinda looks like I do, doesn't it? 

Nope..I'm just a b!tch.  It needs taken care of.  If workplace protections existed, the woman who started this entire mess would not have felt compelled to do so.  It must end. 

Let me scheme a bit...I'll find a way. 

Love ya,