DFS: Quit your job or forget about welfare
JENNI DILLON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Sunday, November 28, 2004 12:00 am
The lord may help those who help themselves, but some Casper women have learned the government doesn't always work the same way.
Brandy, 26, spends her days in the small, east Casper apartment she shares with her husband and stepson. From the outside, the building isn't much to look at, but the family has done its best to make the space a home. A handful of the 5-year-old's toys are scattered on coffee tables. A lock from the boy's first haircut hangs in a frame on the wall. One bookcase is devoted to photos and paraphernalia from the couple's August wedding.
Brandy, wearing pajamas, sits in an older gray easy chair in the corner, watching daytime talk shows, while her stepson plays with his "monsters" in a bedroom. Her husband is at work, where he is a shop hand for a mechanic.
It's not the way Brandy envisioned her life.
Until last month, Brandy was working, cleaning rooms at a local motel. It wasn't her dream job, but it brought the family some additional money for food and clothes and let Brandy feel productive.
Then she learned she was pregnant with her first child.
Her husband's $10-an-hour job, plus her part-time gig, weren't enough to pay for doctors' bills on top of monthly standards like rent, telephone charges, her husband's student loan payments and food for a growing family.
Brandy went to the Wyoming Department of Family Services for temporary help.
"I told (my husband), 'I don't want to raise our kids like my mom raised me. I don't want them to be welfare kids," Brandy said. "I'd rather work three jobs."
For the moment, though, that's not going to happen: DFS workers advised Brandy that the only way to get help paying for medical care during her pregnancy was to quit her job.
Brandy, who asked to be identified by her first name only, isn't alone.
Margi Tummond, a benefits supervisor at the DFS office in Casper, said many families encounter problems similar to Brandy's. Their jobs don't pay enough to have full health care coverage for the entire family - or to meet other mounting bills. But they still make too much money to qualify for help from the state.
"It happens all the time," Tummond said. "There are many situations I see where families have to work two jobs to get by when they're over our guidelines."
Brandy said her family is stuck in a no-win situation.
Without Brandy's income, the family qualifies for prenatal medical care through the state. Brandy will be able to see a doctor throughout her pregnancy and for 60 days after giving birth. The baby will be covered for a year, then may be eligible for state-administered health care coverage for uninsured children.
However, the state aid has a trade-off. Without Brandy's income, the family is short on funds for other bills - like maternity clothes or groceries.
"My mom just came down and took me clothes shopping," Brandy said. "I was reduced to pajamas, because there was no money for maternity clothes."
Brandy has tried to get food stamps from the state, but she and her husband still make too much money. The state calculated her husband's $10-an-hour, 40-hours-a-week income as $1,720 a month. The cutoff for a family of three to be eligible for food stamps is $1,654.
"We live on Hamburger Helper and ravioli," Brandy said. "I think they need to be more understanding: $100 a month in food stamps would help us out more than anything else."
Other options suggested to Brandy included housing subsidies - for which she and her family also do not qualify - and help with utilities, though the family's heat is included with their rent.
"Unfortunately," Tummond said, "there are some people who do fall just over the guidelines."
Tummond offered to review Brandy's case to make sure all avenues had been explored. But, she said, there probably is little else that can be done for the family. The state's welfare system operates under federal guidelines, which dictate who is eligible for assistance.
"Even if they're a dollar over, they're over the limit," Tummond said.
Karla Luckow, who works at the motel where Brandy quit last month, said she's all too familiar with situations like Brandy's.
"I went through it for umpteen years," she said. "It's set up to keep you on the system. They don't give you enough money to live."
Luckow said she is troubled by the predicaments of Brandy and another coworker - also a married woman who recently became pregnant. It seems like they've been punished for being married and working, she said.
"It's disgusting," she said. "Here are these two young couples getting out on their own, trying to do right and not live off the system. They find out they're pregnant and have to quit their jobs to get help.
"There are people who try to screw the system," she said, "but there also are those who really want to do right and can't get the help to do it."
Staff writer Jenni Dillon can be reached at (307) 266-0619 or Jenni.Dillon@casperstartribune.net.