Scale Back Public Aid Programs? Yes and No

The “safety net” in this country is a complex and confusing web of programs overseen by an often opaque and always byzantine bureaucracy that is frequently underpaid with high turnover.  (This doesn’t mean that the bureaucrats are unfeeling or callous people: you can only do so much when your hands are tied by a forest of overlapping, inconsistent, incomplete, and often outdated regulations and programs.)

In homeless shelters (where I served as a chaplain) I’ve seen people carrying around HUGE binders of information about their case.  They often contained hundreds of pages of letters, documentation, emails, flyers, and forms.

Such binders are necessary when you return to an office with the additional proof or documentation they requested last time, and are faced with a newly hired social worker who knows little or nothing about what transpired on your previous visit, and can’t find the documents and letters you’ve already given them.  Sadly, this is not rare occurance.

Getting public aid in this country requires persistence, patience, and often intransigence.  It’s hard enough for native born Americans to navigate the system.  I can’t imagine it’s any easier for refugees or those for whom English is not their native language.

The system can be made far more effective, efficient and responsive than it is.  We must reform it.  The problem is that the current Administration (and no thanks to the current Congress) has proven over and over again that it is incapable of making any reforms, let alone serious or well thought out ones; and that it is oblivious to the realities that people face in their everyday lives.