We're Already poor, if they do this to my family, it will be a nightmare

by Diana Spatz/ LIFETIME

(Oakland, CA) Low-income children and parents from Oakland and San Francisco held a press conference at the State Building in Oakland this morning to protest the push by Senate Republicans to cut more than 200,000 poor children off the welfare rolls to balance the state budget. “Children like me are targets in the state budget this year,” says 13-year old Jasmine Hain, POOR Magazine youth scholar and one of the children who will be cut off public assistance if the Republican Senators have their way. “We’re already poor - if they do this to my family, it will be a nightmare.”

Poster-sized photos of a baby, with a black bull-eye’s target on her diaper, drove the protestors’ message home. “They’re targeting my children,” says Jasmine’s mother Vivian Hain, a LIFETIME member , PNN staff writer and CalWORKs student in Oakland, “to balance the state budget.”

The protestors were members of LIFETIME, a statewide organization of low-income families working to educate policymakers on the impact that the proposed changes to CalWORKs will have on poor children and their families. During the press conference, several media covered the event, while CalWORKs children passed out information on the state budget crisis to more than 300 visitors to the State Building. Four-year old Zosia Scilowski gave her frank assessment of the situation: “The oppressors are trying to take our welfare.”

To break the budget stalemate, the approval of two Senate Republicans is needed. However, a full month into the budget deadlock, Republican Senators refuse to approve a state spending plan unless it includes an additional $700 million in tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. The proposed tax breaks will be funded by changes to CalWORKs, the state welfare program, that will push nearly a quarter of a million poor children off the welfare rolls – and deeper in poverty. “These proposals are economic abuse of poor children,” said Jewnbug Strohlin, a CalWORKs student at City College of San Francisco active with Welfare Queens, a project of POOR Magazine in San Francisco. “It’s not right to balance the budget of the backs of poor children.”

Under current state welfare rules, CalWORKs parents are cut off welfare once they reach their five-year lifetime limit, or if they fail to meet stricter welfare to work rules. However, under the state’s safety net program, their children can still receive aid. Under the proposed changes, if a CalWORKs parent is sanctioned off welfare, their children will be cut off, too. More than 50,000 low-income children will lose benefits under the proposed “full family sanctions.” In addition, the proposed changes will impose retroactive time limits on children whose parents have reached their five-year lifetime limit on welfare, resulting in the immediate termination of nearly 200,000 low-income children from the welfare rolls. Research shows that since 2003, the majority of CalWORKs parents who have reached their time limit on welfare were working and playing by the rules, but in low-wage, dead-end jobs not earning enough to “income off” the welfare rolls.

“Families like mine can’t afford these cuts,” said Dawn Love, a CalWORKs mother caring for her disabled daughter, while working and attending Chabot College in Hayward. “Don’t punish children because their parents are poor.”

Patricia Arana, an immigrant mother living in Oakland, expressed concern about full family sanctions. Patricia and several other mothers described being illegally sanctioned due to caseworker error, and losing cash assistance, as well as childcare, counseling and other support services that enabled them to escape domestic violence, enroll in education and training programs, and hold down jobs.

The sanction caused Patricia and her disabled son to lose their housing. “If not for my boyfriend taking us in, we would have been homeless.” Under full family sanctions, her son would have been illegally sanctioned, “and my family would have had nothing.” After nearly 18 months without cash assistance, Patricia’s caseworker illegally cut off her son’s MediCal benefits, too. Last week, Patricia won her state appeals and all benefits to her family were restored.

While the proposed changes to CalWORKs will save the state money in the short run, research indicates that such measures may cost the state much more over time. Studies show that after similar measures were adopted in Texas, the impact on low-income families was severe. The number of parents on welfare who were working declined by more than 300%, while 45% of the state’s welfare block grant now goes to Child Protective Services, to remove children from their homes. Says LIFETIME Executive Director Diana Spatz, “when a parent deprives their child of food or shelter, its called child abuse. When the government does it, it’s called balancing the budget.”

The Senate reconvened this evening at 6pm to try to reach an agreement. In the meanwhile, LIFETIME encourages everyone to contact their State Senator to share your concerns about the proposed changes to CalWORKs and urge them to pass a fair budget that values all families – especially supporters in the following counties:

- Alameda County: call Senate President Pro Tem, Don Perata, at his Sacramento office at (916)651-4009 and his district office at (510) 286-1333

- Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, or Santa Barbara Counties: please call Senator Abel Maldonado at (916) 651-4015.

- Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, San Benito, or Northeast Monterey Counties (Salinas, Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City), please call Senator Jeff Denham at (916) 651-4012

- Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura and Kern counties: please call Senator George Runner at 916-651-4017

To find out who the State Senator is that represents your district, please go to: www.sen.ca.gov, go to “Senators” on the sidebar and click on Your Senator.

In the meanwhile, check out tomorrow’s Oakland Tribune and the California Progress Report (californiaprogressreport.com) for coverage of the event.

Yours in justice,

Diana Spatz
LIFETIME