Síntesis del precursor 3

Clearly public assistance programs are complicated and the system of navigating strategies for using these programs in order to making ends meet must be strategic. Of the clearest issues that arise in looking at the financial support systems and the obligations taken on by low-income student mothers to maintain them is simply the fact that there are only so many hours in the day. Between, 12-15 hours per week sitting in class, 20+ hours per week working, and 24-30 additional hours of expected homework, these students put in well over 40 hours per week, and often 60 hours per week or more, before even considering time spent caring for children, homes, or maintaining public assistance benefits and student aid requirements. Lack of adequate financial support is a key driving factor behind this crazy juggling act. But even beyond the issues of role overload resulting from the demanding obligations to school, work, family, and public assistance programs that these women face, additional conflicts and difficulties arise in their ability to successfully accomplish the execution of multiple streams of financial support.

One of the most immediate problems within this situation is role conflict resulting from overlapping or conflicting public assistance requirements or between public assistance

requirements and a client’s other obligations. Often times these time conflicts are amplified by policies through which a student’s educational activities are dismissed or disallowed from meeting the requirements of a public assistance program, and thus, are not considered an

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For example, if a person states that they do not know if they claimed any refundable tax credits the last time they filed their taxes, but reports an income of less than $20,000 per year and states that they received a few thousand dollars back on their tax returns, it can be assumed that they did claim refundable tax credits even if they cannot articulate which tax credits they claimed.

acceptable “excuse” for failing to meet program obligations. Gem for example, was receiving unemployment benefits after being laid off from her job. While she had significant experience on her resume she quickly found that she could not find a permanent position without a bachelor’s degree and decided to return to college. She explained how her studies were not only discounted by the Department of Labor, but also that her obligations to the Department of Labor directly conflicted with her class schedule.

I've been going to department of labor appointments because every few months we have to go to make sure that, well you know, I guess that your still qualified. The most annoying thing about that now though is that you can get help if you’re going to school, but you can only get help if you’re going to some kind of trade school or school that you’re not…gonna be there for four years. So because I'm in a four year school I can't get any help…[T]hey won't harass me if I'm in the type of school that they want me to be in. They'll leave me alone until school is done. But it would have to be like…a trade school or something…So that also sort of messes with my schedule because you get these notices and you’re like, okay but I have class that day.[laughs] And then you go in, I mean you still have to go in, it's not where you can call and say I can't come in you still have to go in and say 'I can't come in today, because I have class.'…'well did you fill out a five-ninty--it's called 599--'yes…I did, but I'm not qualified because'--and you know it just…kind of disrupts my schedule because it's like I need this other time to…take care of the kids…try to balance the family. Do my school work…work whenever I get work and then this thing [dealing with the Department of Labor].

In Seattle, Sarah had to plan her class schedule in a way that specifically allowed her to “double-dip” meeting both her work requirements for TANF and gaining academic credit through a unpaid internship. The remainder of her credits she took as condensed weekend seminars, in order to create additional time to meet the housing and job search requirements imposed on her by both the Department of Social and Human Services office (DSHS), and by the transitional housing program30 where she and her daughter lived. After Sarah had been in a major

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Transitional housing is a form of long-term shelter through which homeless families gain access to temporary low-cost housing for a limited amount of time—Sarah’s two-year time limit for residency in transitional housing was up the month after she participated in the interview.

car accident and missed classes she had been sanctioned and removed from a DSHS program through which her classes had previously been counted toward meeting her work requirements.

[Getting through school has] been hell on wheels to be honest. The first four quarters were good, it was smooth sailing. I didn't have any problems with DSHS. I didn't have any problems at all. Then I got into a car accident in the middle of the quarter so I had to drop out the quarter. So when the end of the quarter came the women's program [that allowed college studies] referred me back to DSHS. DSHS was like well what do you want to do? I'm like I wanna finish school. I got like three quarters left let me finish. So they referred me to the women's program again. They were like, 'we don't know if we want her coming back because her attendance was a little shady.' I was like, ‘I was in a car accident! Head on collision in a six car pile up with me and my kid in the car. Hello I'm a little traumatized!’...So…we had to get the supervisor to come in and talk to the women's program [and] they let me back. I'm like alright, cool. Back in school. Things are going good. Grades are up. My first five quarters I stayed on honor roll. Made Dean's list twice. I'm like, ‘These guys keep hassling me!’ [When I started] working my

internship…my attendance was a little spotty…But my grades are still up. I have A's. What is the problem here?…So…they referred me back, and the program said no [I could not continue in the program]…So they want to put me in job search. I convinced them to have my internship be a volunteer position through them. So they're like okay we'll do that. And they never knew that I was still going to school. They thought I was just volunteering all day. No. I was going to school in the morning, volunteering at night. [laughs] Sometimes on the weekends. And it was like, it was hard because it was like, I had to fight to finish school. And even now…DSHS is like, we want to put you back in job search. Luckily this quarter I was able to tweak it to where I don't have to be on campus until February. And it's only for a couple…[full day] weekends. So I'm like, I can still do job search [and] still hold onto my volunteer position[/internship].

Lola received benefits through the Oregon Department of Human Services. A former TANF recipient, Lola had successful transitioned from cash assistance to low-wage work but as a working-poor mother continued to receive SNAP food assistance, an Employment Related Daycare Voucher, and Section 8 rent assistance. However, since Lola worked full-time, in addition to her full-time college studies, she found that public assistance programs, which are likely to be driven by a work-support and/or work-first assistance model, were far less difficult for her to negotiate as a student than they were for other participants. Yet even despite fewer barriers in accessing public assistance benefits, Lola still reflected that maintaining them was a lot of extra work.

They don't just hand it over to you. There [are] forms. Like the Section 8 there's so many hoops you have to jump through to get a…voucher but they're more than worth it. I'm more than willing to devote a certain amount of time if they want paperwork or they come and do inspections and all these silly things they do to you. It's fine but it's a lot of work. And it has deadlines and they send you a big packet. Food Stamps is the same way. But it's worth it. It's more than worth it, ‘cause they've helped me out.

Because she did not receive cash assistance, her benefits required far less frequent periodic reviews occurring once or twice per year, rather than on an ongoing basis. Additionally her status as a student had no bearing on these benefits because she worked full-time and was thus deemed an “eligible student.” One exception however, where Lola continued to experience a barrier involved the fact that her daycare voucher would only cover the specific hours and transportation time related to her job and would not cover childcare during the time that she was in class. Thus, Lola had to pay for childcare by taking out additional student loans.

While smaller non-profit programs and sliding scale scholarships through private organizations may impose fewer mandates and ongoing eligibility requirements on their clients than state administered public assistance programs, one of the primary challenges among these programs is a heavy strain on the programs and organizations providing them due to a

combination of limited funding and high demands. As this research took place from 2009-2011 during the middle of “the great recession”, this was importantly a period of excessive strain on these organizations (DeParle 2009) and continues to be an ongoing problem facing non-profits providing assistance to low-income individuals and families. The outcomes of this crisis on low- income mothers seeking out supplemental or emergency assistance can be observed within their experiences going through the lengthy process of calling through a list of organizations to find help amongst hours of calling, dead telephones at organizations who have shut their doors, busy signals, full voicemail boxes, and recorded answering messages informing callers that they are out of funds and to call back at a later date. A focus group participant explained:

[L]iterally my electricity's shut off and I'm like calling…they give me a list of like ten different community organizations you know like the Y and you know this place that place and I call every single one of them and they're like 'we're out of money, we're out of money'--…I'm like, this is a federal program, this is supposed to a federal program. How are you out of money?...They told me like try—there’s no waiting list—they’re like 'we're out of money, call back on the first’...And then you call on the first and the phone is busy.

Furthermore, while a small few public assistance programs continue to be offered as an entitlement, many programs hold lengthy waiting lists of applicants waiting to receive assistance. This is true both for non-profits as well as for larger government assistance programs. State housing and childcare assistance programs are particularly difficult to access due to excessive wait lists created through a combination of insufficient funding and high demand for aid. Ruth had returned to living with her parents to avoid homelessness when she could not find affordable housing in an expensive California housing market and was unable to even access the waiting list for Section 8 or public housing.

I have 2 classes that are really hard…I have having difficulty keeping up with all the new information, working, trying to study, taking care of my son, taking my son to soccer, and deal with the situation of living at home with my parents. I actually am staying at my Grandmas this week due to all the stress at my moms. The EOPS [Extended Opportunity Programs and Services] program I am in for disadvantaged students had to cut off free tutoring services due to the California budget issues. This has been extremely devastating for me since I have 2 classes I need help with. There are tutors on campus but they have to help several other students, thus denying that one on one that most people struggling with new concepts need in order to be successful. I find myself completely overwhelmed and we are not even a month into the semester. I have looked for low income housing or free housing but all the programs are closed. I think about getting another job to be able to pay for a one bedroom but I currently do not have enough time for the things in my life now let alone trying to add another job into the mix.

Even if Ruth had been able to get onto the waiting list however, it would not have solved her immediate housing crisis as the lengthy wait list for the program is several years long. Alisia, who was fortunate enough to get onto the wait list for Section 8 in California, finally started receiving it in 2006, 7 years after applying.

I think I did it in 99 I want to say. And I just got it. I've only been on it--I just made 2 years July 1st. So that tells you--and it just so happened to be for this county. I was in Alameda County at the time, when I had my son. So my mom just said one day "you know…there's something here from…the housing authority…you might want to come check it out." And so I think this was way back in '05. And they were opening the waiting list and my name was on it. You know just to call and verify and check and I did….they said "hey you know come down for orientation" and everything like that and I got it. While housing assistance waiting list is notoriously long, many other programs had similarly difficult problems with lengthy waiting lists and closed application pools. In Oregon the waiting list for the Parents as Scholars program, which allowed a limited number of TANF recipients to attend college while continuing to receive benefits was at least 8 months long according to official accounts by the program, but in public testimony before the Oregon House of Representatives Human Services Sub-Committee clients testified that they waited 2 years or longer before being accepted into the program.31 Oregon uses the federal TANF time limit of 5 years. Thus, for the few who got through the lengthy waiting lists to actually participate in the program, their lifetime assistance limit had been clocked against them while they waited, thus reducing the length of time they could utilize the program once they were granted access.32

Childcare voucher wait lists are similarly challenging. In Massachusetts for example, non-TANF participants must apply for the “work-related” childcare waiting list, which, when I conducted interviews with these organizations in 2004 was one to two years long and grew significantly during the recession. In 2009, Chris had not been unable to get childcare assistance in Massachusetts at all responding in her journal to the question about issues and concerns she faced in the past week: “Childcare. [I’m] unable to get the childcare voucher due to the

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This program allowed participation by only 1% of the state’s total TANF population, which translated to 191 families in 2008 and 226 in 2009 according to personal correspondence with the statewide director of the program. To maintain status on the wait list for the program applicants were required to both maintain acceptance status at a college or university, while also maintaining an active TANF case, meeting all the program requirements and stipulations, including work requirements

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This particular program closed its application pool July 1, 2011 and is now being phased out due to state-wide budget cuts.

government putting a hold and not issuing anymore indefinitely.” While it is unlikely that Chris’ description of childcare assistance being indefinitely terminated was wholly accurate33, the impact on Chris’ life of not being able to access the voucher program was the same as if it had been. Thus, Chris had to patch together her childcare strategy through a combination of friends and family members watching her son while she went to class and foregoing opportunities to stay on campus for homework, study groups and other activities or order to quickly get back home to her son.

Even where aid could be found and accessed, amounts were often highly limited and could not pull participants out of crisis mode. Gennine spent the first three months of her spring semester trying to pull together enough resources from emergency utility assistance and food pantries to keep the heat on through the cold Mid-Western winter and enough food in the refrigerator to feed her eleven year old and two teenage children. Starting the first week of the term Gennine recorded that she had received a shut-off notice for her power but that living in a small town she had already tried the local heating assistance program, which had no more funds available. Only two weeks later she journaled:

“I just received a power shut-off notice and I just paid them some money (my power bill here is extreme). We have decided to start looking for another house to move to because of this.”

But Gennine did not end up moving, and it was not until the spring thaw that she was finally able to stop worrying about handling the crises caused by a constant stream of shut-off notices that just seemed to keep coming no matter what she did.

For many participants, sometimes there was simply no help available because no programs existed targeting a specific need. Gennine noted for example that her area had no 33

It is possible that Chris was told this by a caseworker or that this was her interpretation of the information given to her regarding the long waitlist process and the effective impossibility of her ability to gain access to the program.

program that offered assistance with water bills. Vehicle repairs and gasoline were also

pervasively discussed needs identified by participants, but most had found no assistance program that offered to help with these transportation expenses. This was a particular hardship for

participants who lived in areas with poor public transportation: smaller cities especially on the West Coast and in the Mid-West, suburban towns, and rural areas. Furthermore, limits on transportation constrain one’s ability to seek out services from providers that are further away, and adds considerably to the demands on a student-mothers’ time.

Many participants used a cost-benefit analysis in discussing how they assessed whether a particular benefit was “worth it.” For example, a majority of the participants who had young children and who currently received or had recently received WIC nutritional assistance