The Road to Coney Island

As I walked the road to Coney Island welfare office (I walk to avoid paying the metrocard fare), I thought about a recent debacle involving a job offer. It was with an "alternative," private employment agency that was looking for youngsters with strong social sciences backgrounds. The interview went about as smoothly as a jalopy car on a pebble beach, but my interviewer liked me enough and I was offered a clerical position the following week. I accepted. Then, and only then, I decided to research the company and, with horror, I discovered that it was founded and run by an anti-welfare right-winger hell-bent on using state money to undermine our country's meager asssistance programs. I sent them an embarrassed, frustrated e-mail rescinding my acceptance.

The experience reified the major personal dilemma which will inevitably haunt my twentysomethings: are there any jobs out there for which I am qualified that both pay a living wage and mesh with my ethical principles? Unfortunately, “business ethics” is an oxymoron, and most jobs in the private sector will involve undermining or hurting someone else: the end result of competition is one winner and a sinkhole-full of losers. Not slipping on a tie and acquiescing to this state of affairs ensures starvation, and yet, my attitude to joining "Corporate America," at least for now, remains similar to that of many anti-fur activists:

And so, with my savings slumping inward like a dead man’s eyeballs, I panicked and began looking up food pantries and homeless shelters. This is, for the most part, an overreaction – but there is something to be said about the Alphaville lyric: “preparing for the best but expecting the worst: are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”

Although budgeting is always on my mind, I am keen on “keeping up appearances,” as in meeting friends at bars, buying rounds and tipping appropriately. Such admittedly-irresponsible behavior probably relates to my Jewish upbringing, as the stereotype of the “cheap Jew” persists, and my parents always emphasized tipping heartily, probably as a direct result of this stereotype.

Little luxuries are also essential. These include the occasional $1.89 can of seitan. In truth, I could probably survive on four or five $0.75 cans of beans per day, but such a miserable, gaseous fate would appeal only to the rare Le Pétomane among us.

Coffee, whether instant, tinned or in the form of an airtight brick, is another one of those necessary luxuries. Along my aforementioned walk, a jovial, mustachioed gent smiled at me and said, in the type of more-Italian-than-American Brooklynese accent reminiscent of those found in (forgive me) the Super Mario Bros. franchise:

“The diner. Over there. For you! For the coffee!”

“Uh, thanks!” He walked by quickly. I did not have my morning coffee – how on earth did he know? Clearly, this encounter was kismet, downright magical: the heavens themselves wanted me to get a cup of delicious, home-style coffee. I peeked through the diner window and saw somewhere warm, old-fashioned and wood-grain: the kind of place where all the customers order waffles, and where all are served by a smiling, red-lipped waitress who always carries an expensive-looking pen. I perused at the menu. A coffee would cost me $1.30: not much more than in any given bodega. I hesitated, thinking that, if I had the money in change, I would buy the coffee. I had only a few dimes and a quarter, but fate wanted me to buy that coffee, and so I broke my own set of conditions. 

I told the young waitress about the happy customer and handed her a five dollar note.

“Yes, we know him. He sat over there,” said the waitress, gesturing over the partition where she poured the coffee.

It was good coffee: slightly burnt, but certainly worth one-thirty. 

Welfare, American Style

On my current budget, it would be impractical for me to buy many of the foods that I like to eat, such as fruits and vegetables. I consequently applied for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, or “food stamps,” as the program once was called (and as everyone still calls it). If Ayn Rand believes that this makes me undeserving of love, so be it.

My nearest benefits center is in Coney Island. The area has a strange still to it this time of year, likely exacerbated by the lingering, spectral presence of Hurricane Sandy. Inside the building, the walls are painted off-white, with a mauve color rising like a cheerful water-stain about three feet off the floor. Triangles of this mauve paint have peeled, exposing the sad concrete walls underneath.

Those seeking benefits are an extraordinarily diverse lot. When glancing at their faces, I can’t help wondering about their respective countries of origin, and which regimes they survived.

She must have survived Mao. He somehow endured Stalin. That shawled woman with the waddling child might have fled Assad…

I have also noticed that a significant number of the workers at the benefits center appear incapable of smiling, empathizing or betraying any other sign of their presumed humanity. Those with Russian or Western-African accents are usually beneficent; it is, unfortunately, my fellow Americans who tend to treat people the worst. This rude, apathetic and, in some cases, abusive treatment is the inevitable result of my country’s individualistic, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mindset. Often, when someone in need of assistance points out some procedural injustice in their case, those in the position to help instead respond by repeating themselves, only louder and more slowly: e.g., “YOU NEED TO HAVE AN EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION FORM.” Vitriol fills their eyes as they speak. You would think they were dealing with an infamous paedophile from a television news story.

Perhaps apathy and suspicion are meant to safeguard against benefits fraud, even if the grounds for these suspicions are largely stereotypical and not reflected in actual fact:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/10/08/center-on-budget-and-policy-priorities-defends-government-assistance-programs-from-gop-scorn/

I requested a fair hearing trial after my initial application for food stamps… er, “Supplemental Nutritional Assistance” was rejected. However, the date on which this was scheduled clashed with a dentist appointment (Medicaid was surprisingly easier to attain: I first assumed that the price of the program would make acceptance a novelty, but then I realized that, as a publicly-funded health care program, it’s probably cheaper than private care…). I asked if I could reschedule the date of my hearing. I could not. What should I do?

“You’ll have to decide which is most important to you,” said the woman at the desk, with a strange smile ticking-up the corners of her mouth.