California’s social services lifted my family out of poverty. Now, that help is at risk | Opinion

As a student-parent attending community college and working more than 20 hours a week, I have faced many challenges over the years. Still, I overcame them with the help of some valuable programs provided through CalWORKs, known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families nationally, and more commonly referred to as welfare.

When most people think of welfare, they think about cash assistance. The important truth of CalWORKs is that it doesn’t just offer financial support. It also includes programs like family stabilization that provide additional services to support families experiencing crisis who are struggling to stretch their grant to cover basic necessities.

That’s why I’m shocked and dismayed that this life-saving program (and others like it) are now on the chopping block, as the state faces a budget deficit.

Opinion

With a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old, I was trying to escape an unhealthy environment and relationship. I asked myself, “Will I still be in this hopeless situation five years from now?” I decided that I needed to make a change for myself and my daughters so that they could experience life outside of poverty.

I signed up for CalWORKs and food stamps. Then, I enrolled at Laney Community College in Oakland. I was only 95 pounds, facing homelessness and overwhelmed by mental health struggles. While CalWORKs provided childcare and paid for my books, finding a safe place to study was challenging. I had to bring my children to class and only had time to search for daycare on my days off.

Although the resources offered by CalWORKs were helpful, they weren’t enough to ensure my success (the average monthly grant is only $1,021). We used the money to survive, but we still didn’t have a home to cook the food we received from food stamps. Without a safe place to call home, the benefits were just a means of survival — not a path to a better life.

Desperate for help, I went back to the welfare office and was told that someone might reach out to me, but it wasn’t guaranteed. While walking to the bus stop, I received a phone call from the Family Stabilization Program. They said they might be able to help me temporarily, but I knew this opportunity would change my life.

Soon after, my daughters and I had a place to call home. We could cook dinner together and have dance parties in the living room. It might not have been much, but it was everything to us. For the first time, I was able to put my kids to bed and focus on my homework.

Now, however, the governor’s proposed budget would permanently eliminate Family Stabilization. It would also cut Subsidized Employment, intensive case management for families with the greatest barriers and county administrative funding — threatening good union jobs, mental health, substance abuse, home visiting and other vital services. I am at a loss over what these cuts would mean for families like my own.

I now have an Associate in Science degree and am waiting to enter a radiology program while working to transfer my kinesiology degree. State assistance changed my life and helped me achieve my goals. Family Stabilization gave me the opportunity to show my children that we don’t have to settle, and that poverty doesn’t have our name on it.

Cutting programs that support families already at risk has human consequences, pushing families past the brink. Just last fall, a baby died at a bus stop near LAX after the mother had made repeated attempts to access aid. That should be a wake-up call to all of us to strengthen — not cut — our safety net.

These cuts make no sense from a social stand point, and they make no sense from an economic standpoint, too.

“If states opt to simply stop providing cash assistance to families affected by a work requirement, the economic and societal costs could be as high as $29.6 billion per year,” according to a brief from Columbia University’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy.

These assistance programs are making a real impact, empowering families across California, two generations at a time.

I’m counting on the governor and legislature to do the right thing and listen to parents like me who have known poverty firsthand. Parents with low income didn’t cause this budget problem, and we can’t be asked to solve it. Budgets are statements of values, and we need California to prioritize our poorest children and families.

Joy Perrin is a Laney Community College student and a student leader with Project SPARC (Student Parents Are Reimagining CalWORKs).