By Kendall Worth!
This post is an inside look at living your life on welfare. As I talk about in several of my posts, the way things look and seem in the community of people I advocate for the majority of welfare recipients live life dealing with a combination of the following factors:
$950.00 or in some cases $609.00 a month, is not enough money to live on and leave anything for going out and socializing. After Rent and Bills are paid there is next to nothing, or in many cases nothing-whats-so-ever-left.
Many people do not have any family or, if they do have family, their relationship with family has deteriorated.
For many friendships have ended because people do not understand why the person, who they were once friends with, is now on welfare.
The principle reason behind family relationships deteriorating and old friendships ending is because of stigma that family and old/childhood friends believe about the welfare recipient, and people on welfare generally as I talked about here and here.
Some of that stigma comes from misunderstanding of invisible disabilities experienced by some welfare recipients, as I explain in this article.
As I point out in this piece and its follow up is that many welfare recipients are not able to even meet someone who has romantic interest in them in the first place.
Lack of support to help the welfare recipient improve their mental health being available through Mental Health Services.
I want to once again write about Bob, who is one of the two people I talked about in this article. and in this article. While learning more about Bob’s situation, I actually found out that Bob and I have something else in common. Bob and myself both have impulse control disorder. Impulse control is a disability that gets misunderstood a lot in society, but this Media Coop link explains more about it.
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| Volunteers wanted but sometimes not on their terms... |
Bob’s recent experience of being invited to take part in a zoom call of a volunteer organization that he was invited to be, and wants to be, part of. The problem is these meetings are only available over Zoom. Even though Bob does have access to internet at home, (unlike many welfare recipients) he has difficulty with online meetings. During COVID restrictions, when society as in a whole had no choice but to have meetings online, he found that joining meetings via Zoom did not work with his impulse control disorder. Bob was part of another group from 2014 until 2019 who then held meetings only over the phone. Bob ended up stepping down from that group because of their refusal to change meetings to in-person. This was a Board of Directors he was volunteering on, before the days of COVID began.
One reason why Bob does not want to identify himself publicly, as a welfare recipient, is because he has people in his personal life who believe all the myths about welfare recipients , and stigmatize him for it. In the past, when he did go public, using his name in the mainstream media about his is situation on welfare, he ended up getting harassed by people who he has not spoken to in years. Those folks believed that Bob is on welfare only because he does not want to work, and they do not believe he has “disabilities. This article points out exactly what happened to Bob and many others.
Anyway getting back to Bob’s Recent Experience!
Recently, Bob was invited to join a meeting, but on zoom. After telling the person who invited him, that joining via Zoom, or any other online app does not work well with his his disability (OCD, aka impulse control disorder) – and after explaining he needs these meetings to be in person for him to fully participate, the person suggested inviting a friend over to to sit with you while the zoom is happening? To answer this question I am providing the following statement:
Bob
said, "the
way I explained to that person the issue is explained best in your posts. This
article explains,
and
more is illustrated in this
article."
And, if I go back to when I interviewed Alex Stratford it is clear that a Social Circle of Friends who Bob could call and invite over to his apartment, is something he, along with the majority of welfare recipients, do not have. Then Bob further answered this question from the contact from the volunteer organization... Do you even pay attention to For what matters Journalism blog? Because if you did, you would understand why I have no social network.
One more thing Bob pointed out is:
With the May 19, 2023 post pointing out respecting boundaries, and as quoted in May 07, 2023 post “You cannot just go around your apartment building and knock on doors”. If I went this route to try and make that new friend tonight, that would be overstepping a boundary in itself.
I want to end this post by saying that updates and details on the Mitigating Social Isolation Project will be coming soon. Details on our first event, being held on June 12th, at Brunswick St Mission, will be posted here in the next day or 2.
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