This past month I organized two interviews and then waited. As I have said in a previous posting there are so many ways that silence works for people. So I waited nearly two weeks for one interviewee to make a two word edit in her story. I waited nearly as long for the other one to drop by my apartment for ten minutes. He is in my building six days out of seven.
While I was waiting I happened to be on the phone one morning with a woman in her mid-thirties (another Joan – all the women interviewees are going to be Joan!) I have known her well since she was ten. We visit about once a year and talk two or three times a month on the phone.
Joan lives in Montreal, in a group home where she shares a room with another resident who is not in any way a spousal or sexual partner. She prefers this arrangement over others in her recent past because the “house mother” is much more relaxed and the rent is cheaper.
Joan has lived on welfare – the Quebec version of ODSP – for fifteen years. She lives this way because she is on a complex of psychiatrist prescribed medications – at last count 14. She became diabetic about ten years ago so a few more meds have been added to the cocktail. Beyond the $900 she receives for food and rent welfare pays for these prescriptions and for some “training programs” and the transportation to these programs.
I put “training programs” in quotes because Joan has been training on and off for exactly the same sort of job for nearly as long as she has been on welfare. When she is mentally well she works as an assistant in a seniors’ residence. She performed this job more than adequately in one establishment for over five years.
Her tasks are simple, repetitive and absolutely essential – if she didn’t do them a regularly paid employee would be called in. Once or twice a day she sets up the furniture in an activity room, wheels the residents into the room, sits with them while they do exercises in their chairs or play board games, helps serve a light snack, wheels the participants back to their rooms and cleans the room. Joan does this 3 days a week usually for about 2.5 hours a day, and sometimes she will take a 5 hour shift.
Joan performs these simple tasks with a genuine affection for the old people she supports. Her high regard for the elders has won her several acknowledgements at various memorial services from grateful relatives after a resident has died.
Joan provides other social support as well. In her words: “I am there for my friends. I help them out when they don’t feel good. I had to call 911 twice for my friend last month who had taken four days of pills and slit her wrists.”
Similarly to the way things work in Ontario, Joan says that being on the “disability” benefit creates some obstacles for her. She says: “It makes it harder because even if I wanted to work for the people I could lose my welfare.” In such a case she would lose her medical and dental coverage, and have to pay the prohibitive cost of her medication.
Joan has had some private arrangements in the past, providing one-on-one support to an elderly woman for cash. She says: “I want to work for the elderly under the table so I could have more money to buy things like shoes and more tattoos. I would work more than 7 hours a week if allowed, but I’m scared of losing my welfare.”
When Joan is undergoing an episode of hearing voices, anxiety or other disturbance life gets very rough and it is clear why she needs ready access to a stepped-up level of medical and social support. It is perfectly understandable why Joan equates working for money with taking an unnecessary and dangerous risk. In my view I wonder what it would take to create a government funded financial support system that permitted Joan to access medical and other health funding, and even life cost money from time to time, while also participating in the regular economy when she is well.
Ah, but maybe that’s another story.
Judith
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Catch 22
Yeah! This week I got to interview a young woman who has been on ODSP for three and a half years.
I met Joan in the context of work done to improve diversity and inclusion in public education in Ontario. (Now that’s REALLY another story!) Joan is attractive, poised, articulate and thoughtful. Her main reason for being a recipient of ODSP is that she uses a motorized wheelchair and needs help with the cost of buying and repairing this and other accessibility equipment. These expenses can add up to tens of thousands of dollars a year – a prohibitive cost to any but the well paid in our society.
Joan has sought employment on a number of occasions and finds two sorts of limitations to this way of living. Her own physical characteristics make working in winter highly fatiguing. On top of this, access and transportation barriers are worsened by cold and snow.
However in summer months Joan has participated in a number of leadership and training programs, some of which were paid. Unfortunately, she says, none of them gave her access to the world outside of the “disability” field. She would like to, and has tried to, break into a world of contribution, even employment, beyond the “disability” realm but has been unable to find this opening. She has applied but never heard back from the places she applied to.
Joan volunteers 15-20 hours a week. She makes presentations about inclusive education, reviews and makes decisions about applications for specialized programs such as summer camp for children with disability labels, is a program advisor for a children’s rehabilitation organization and is a member of a committee that helps decide who will receive certain awards.
Joan told me that being an ODSP recipient makes volunteering possible in that it pays for her equipment and its repairs, plus her medications. Being on ODSP also makes volunteering, and the likelihood of finding paid work, harder in that she must continuously negotiate not receiving too much money for what she does. In fact she has turned down some opportunities because the level of negotiation that would have been required seemed too exhausting! Herein lies her Catch 22.
Joan also admitted that she sometimes lies and does not report every small stipend she receives. To quote Joan: “If I am honest about being reimbursed for my volunteering, it would get deducted from my ODSP and what is the point of that? Other opportunities open up, but I might turn them down because it would make things complicated. I would have to negotiate with them carefully and I am limited by the consequences ODSP implements around my making money.”
Joan went on to say that she has chosen not to try for some awards and honouraria because even if she received an amount like $5000 just once the explanations and reporting she would have to do are so onerous as to make it potentially too risky and so not worth the effort.
The problem in this arrangement as I see it is that Joan is also giving up two ways that would help her get to her goal of working outside of the “disability” field. On the one hand she is limiting her resume as she both avoids reporting some activities and avoids other opportunities outright due to receiving ODSP. On the other hand, as is well known in the employment sector, volunteering is a strong path to paid work, unless of course you are constantly limiting the scope of areas where you put yourself forward.
So here is Joan, ready, willing and able to work, at least in the summer – well educated, well trained, well known, already performing at employment type activities 50% of the week, skilled and experienced in many ordinary tasks of the NGO sector – and unemployed, poor and expecting to continue in this condition. And what is the persistent barrier? If she went to work for real she could not afford the cost of sustaining her wheelchair, her medications and transportation that was safe, warm and effective in the winter – (a wheelchair accessible taxi??).
I truly wish this was a unique story because then some sensible people would work it out with Joan and it would all be OK. Unfortunately Joan’s story is far from hers alone.
Judith
I met Joan in the context of work done to improve diversity and inclusion in public education in Ontario. (Now that’s REALLY another story!) Joan is attractive, poised, articulate and thoughtful. Her main reason for being a recipient of ODSP is that she uses a motorized wheelchair and needs help with the cost of buying and repairing this and other accessibility equipment. These expenses can add up to tens of thousands of dollars a year – a prohibitive cost to any but the well paid in our society.
Joan has sought employment on a number of occasions and finds two sorts of limitations to this way of living. Her own physical characteristics make working in winter highly fatiguing. On top of this, access and transportation barriers are worsened by cold and snow.
However in summer months Joan has participated in a number of leadership and training programs, some of which were paid. Unfortunately, she says, none of them gave her access to the world outside of the “disability” field. She would like to, and has tried to, break into a world of contribution, even employment, beyond the “disability” realm but has been unable to find this opening. She has applied but never heard back from the places she applied to.
Joan volunteers 15-20 hours a week. She makes presentations about inclusive education, reviews and makes decisions about applications for specialized programs such as summer camp for children with disability labels, is a program advisor for a children’s rehabilitation organization and is a member of a committee that helps decide who will receive certain awards.
Joan told me that being an ODSP recipient makes volunteering possible in that it pays for her equipment and its repairs, plus her medications. Being on ODSP also makes volunteering, and the likelihood of finding paid work, harder in that she must continuously negotiate not receiving too much money for what she does. In fact she has turned down some opportunities because the level of negotiation that would have been required seemed too exhausting! Herein lies her Catch 22.
Joan also admitted that she sometimes lies and does not report every small stipend she receives. To quote Joan: “If I am honest about being reimbursed for my volunteering, it would get deducted from my ODSP and what is the point of that? Other opportunities open up, but I might turn them down because it would make things complicated. I would have to negotiate with them carefully and I am limited by the consequences ODSP implements around my making money.”
Joan went on to say that she has chosen not to try for some awards and honouraria because even if she received an amount like $5000 just once the explanations and reporting she would have to do are so onerous as to make it potentially too risky and so not worth the effort.
The problem in this arrangement as I see it is that Joan is also giving up two ways that would help her get to her goal of working outside of the “disability” field. On the one hand she is limiting her resume as she both avoids reporting some activities and avoids other opportunities outright due to receiving ODSP. On the other hand, as is well known in the employment sector, volunteering is a strong path to paid work, unless of course you are constantly limiting the scope of areas where you put yourself forward.
So here is Joan, ready, willing and able to work, at least in the summer – well educated, well trained, well known, already performing at employment type activities 50% of the week, skilled and experienced in many ordinary tasks of the NGO sector – and unemployed, poor and expecting to continue in this condition. And what is the persistent barrier? If she went to work for real she could not afford the cost of sustaining her wheelchair, her medications and transportation that was safe, warm and effective in the winter – (a wheelchair accessible taxi??).
I truly wish this was a unique story because then some sensible people would work it out with Joan and it would all be OK. Unfortunately Joan’s story is far from hers alone.
Judith
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Silence
Today is muggy and hot, with a smog alert announced this morning, which means elderly and other vulnerable people are encouraged to stay in air conditioned surroundings and drink lots of water.
The food bank being where it is – in a bus free industrial area - as I entered and left today I saw two elders walking along, braving the heat and thick air to get their food allowance.
Unbelievably there WAS bread today – long, squishy white loaves that had been sliced lengthwise instead of the typical cross cuts. No matter – it brought a chuckle! As I write my personal assistant is packing sandwiches into the freezer. Remember I have plenty of peanut butter!
Silence is an intrical part of being poor. In many ways it forms a large part of the texture of the day.
For example, today being intensely hot, the food bank was no place of idle banter. The ubiquitous noise of fans and limping air conditioners, and fork lift trucks in the back met no challenge from conversation, excepting only in the tiny computer room where you are issued the dry erase card that permits you to enter the waiting anteroom before the actual food room. When my assistant and I reached the distribution volunteer he performed his duties without uttering a word except to agree that I could have two cans of tuna instead of one can and a pack of hot dogs.
Surprisingly he was both adept and generous. He made all my selections for me (tuna excepted) with clear experience regarding what I could and could not have. He was clearly not confused at all by the complexity of the selection criteria he was required to follow. Yet as we approached the end, where only candy and old vegetables remained, he too began to pop in to my bag an extra carrot and a small sack of chocolates. I was moved again by how my colleagues of meagre circumstances find ways to be generous and to express their compassion for each other’s situations!
My assistant went to the kitchen as soon as we got home and now my freezer is well stocked with curried vegetable soup.
The relative silence of ODSP case workers is also notable. As I mentioned in a recent posting it seems that these people go to extensive effort to deal with the random rulings spit out by the electronic inners of the system that distributes the money. On the occasions I have attended interrogations the behind-the-desk staff have worked their way around to giving me favourable answers, but never have they disclosed their opinions, chatted about their working conditions, answered a direct question or explained why they invariably leave me waiting in small rooms while they do some mysterious thing out of sight and earshot. “I will be right back” is the best you will get.
I believe that the expectation of silence is behind my friends’ initial reluctance to be interviewed for this blog. That I am writing a blog is in itself grounds for keeping quiet and avoiding my questions! I am not surprised – I am pointing out that silence is built into poor people’s way of life.
I believe it stems back to the situation I outlined in my first posting. Everything about ODSP and about other systems designed to “benefit” the poor is based on the Victorian poor laws. The harmonic that we still live with is the legislated certainty that it is a crime to be poor.
Criminals naturally don’t want to tell everything about how they live. Since it is clear that few if any human beings can live on the income that ODSP provides, nearly everyone in this circumstance must be hiding something somewhere – or they would be dead. But moneybags is, or at least so it seems, continuously aiming to close down these strategies. Keeping silent is clearly a smart thing to do.
But silence prevents people from acknowledging and celebrating many of the contributions that they make. Whether it be the volunteer who hands out extra cans of beans and extra carrots or the person who makes sure that another person gets back to their own apartment when Wheeltrans gets them only to the front door (and receives a little extra cash for the service), people cannot say who they are or what they are up to for fear of upsetting their fragile accommodations. But then we cannot say how much the world is benefitting from our activities either.
It is my intention to let the world know how deep the contributions go and how extensive their variety is. I must do so carefully. I am risking much by doing this.
Judith
The food bank being where it is – in a bus free industrial area - as I entered and left today I saw two elders walking along, braving the heat and thick air to get their food allowance.
Unbelievably there WAS bread today – long, squishy white loaves that had been sliced lengthwise instead of the typical cross cuts. No matter – it brought a chuckle! As I write my personal assistant is packing sandwiches into the freezer. Remember I have plenty of peanut butter!
Silence is an intrical part of being poor. In many ways it forms a large part of the texture of the day.
For example, today being intensely hot, the food bank was no place of idle banter. The ubiquitous noise of fans and limping air conditioners, and fork lift trucks in the back met no challenge from conversation, excepting only in the tiny computer room where you are issued the dry erase card that permits you to enter the waiting anteroom before the actual food room. When my assistant and I reached the distribution volunteer he performed his duties without uttering a word except to agree that I could have two cans of tuna instead of one can and a pack of hot dogs.
Surprisingly he was both adept and generous. He made all my selections for me (tuna excepted) with clear experience regarding what I could and could not have. He was clearly not confused at all by the complexity of the selection criteria he was required to follow. Yet as we approached the end, where only candy and old vegetables remained, he too began to pop in to my bag an extra carrot and a small sack of chocolates. I was moved again by how my colleagues of meagre circumstances find ways to be generous and to express their compassion for each other’s situations!
My assistant went to the kitchen as soon as we got home and now my freezer is well stocked with curried vegetable soup.
The relative silence of ODSP case workers is also notable. As I mentioned in a recent posting it seems that these people go to extensive effort to deal with the random rulings spit out by the electronic inners of the system that distributes the money. On the occasions I have attended interrogations the behind-the-desk staff have worked their way around to giving me favourable answers, but never have they disclosed their opinions, chatted about their working conditions, answered a direct question or explained why they invariably leave me waiting in small rooms while they do some mysterious thing out of sight and earshot. “I will be right back” is the best you will get.
I believe that the expectation of silence is behind my friends’ initial reluctance to be interviewed for this blog. That I am writing a blog is in itself grounds for keeping quiet and avoiding my questions! I am not surprised – I am pointing out that silence is built into poor people’s way of life.
I believe it stems back to the situation I outlined in my first posting. Everything about ODSP and about other systems designed to “benefit” the poor is based on the Victorian poor laws. The harmonic that we still live with is the legislated certainty that it is a crime to be poor.
Criminals naturally don’t want to tell everything about how they live. Since it is clear that few if any human beings can live on the income that ODSP provides, nearly everyone in this circumstance must be hiding something somewhere – or they would be dead. But moneybags is, or at least so it seems, continuously aiming to close down these strategies. Keeping silent is clearly a smart thing to do.
But silence prevents people from acknowledging and celebrating many of the contributions that they make. Whether it be the volunteer who hands out extra cans of beans and extra carrots or the person who makes sure that another person gets back to their own apartment when Wheeltrans gets them only to the front door (and receives a little extra cash for the service), people cannot say who they are or what they are up to for fear of upsetting their fragile accommodations. But then we cannot say how much the world is benefitting from our activities either.
It is my intention to let the world know how deep the contributions go and how extensive their variety is. I must do so carefully. I am risking much by doing this.
Judith
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Contributions That Make Things Work
I am in hot pursuit of four new interviews. In the meantime, I have been to the food bank again. This caused many reflections on other contributions I have been experiencing from poor people. I thought I would share this with you.
Once again there was no bread at the food bank, and in fact there wasn’t any in the back either so my “helper” and I were unable to take liberties. However, the absence of bread proved to be a conversation opener as I was waiting in the “holding tank” to go in and make my selections.
The person I am thinking of is a young woman, possibly in her mid-thirties, of slight build and gracefully dressed. She was accompanied by her son and daughter, both apparently between the ages of eight and twelve. They arrived just after we did.
The cause of our waiting proved to be that there was only one volunteer actually distributing food, another volunteer whose job it is to check us off in the computer system was absent from his office, and we were immediately preceded by a very chatty man who wanted to demonstrate his swollen feet to the computer volunteer when he finally did arrive. And so, the line was moving lethargically this particular afternoon.
As I believe I have written about before, an issue with being poor and being served is the constant message in the ambience that you are needy and helpless. My response to this ambience is to intentionally and ongoingly create strategies to shift the emotional atmosphere for myself and others. And so, I engaged the young woman briefly in joking conversation about the process of choosing, (and I use that word in ironic jest) from the meagre selection that would become available to us when we were ultimately allowed into the food room.
I started by asking her to bet whether or not there would be bread, but she wasn’t taking me up on that one. Her immediately response was “No bread!” and we laughed. As I peered through the window at the person with the big feet chatting up the volunteer, I noted out loud that there was a plentiful supply of peanut butter. We had a quick and affirming chat about how many cans of cranberry sauce and how many jars of peanut butter we had already collected from previous visits.
At this point I learned a strategy! The woman told me that she had frequently made peanut butter cookies for her kids. Now, as I’m sure you recognize, there is no flour or butter at the food bank. I realize that she had adopted a similar strategy to one that I frequently use; that she takes what is available and uses her small resources to buy something so that together she can make a food that is acceptable and nutritious. I’m not saying that I’m a genius for inventing this strategy – it is pretty obvious in fact. But I felt affirmed as she expressed a bit of her own story.
By this point, her kids were sitting quietly and we were chatting happily. It soon came time for me to enter the food room.
Once again the distributing volunteer was very generous, openly acknowledging that she was giving me more than she was supposed to, i.e. an extra can of salmon. There was fresh fruit this time. Perhaps the greatest moment was the point where the volunteer virtually thrust a packet of chocolate candy into my assistant’s hands. Although I cannot eat these things, I recognize her gesture as one of bringing a sense of abundance and gratitude into the space. I happily took the candies knowing that my personal assistants will make short work of them.
This reflection is about how poor people contribute to each other. The food bank is ninety percent run by volunteers, and ninety percent of those volunteers are also recipients. (These statistics are visual, not accurate.) Like the majority of the service system, the food bank could not run if it weren’t operated by the people who are served by it. Without access to the decision making, the intake or output processes, or any of the planning, it is poor people who are stepping in to the situation, working their way around the glitches, and making it work for each other.
Here are some of the contributions poor people make to the free food distribution system:
- Sorting the food, including disposing of rotten fruits and vegetables that arrive daily. As my assistant and I entered through the receiving area, we noted one young woman busily packing rotten potatoes into a disposal container.
- Distributing information, both globally and personally. A couple of small rooms are devoted to both legal and social questions and someone is always there to hand out pamphlets. Aside from that, individual questions are bantered around in the waiting rooms and in the line ups and around the coffee urn.
- Managing the emotional temperature. The line ups, the waiting, the sense of being personally inadequate, the struggles to meet the quirky schedules, the endless interrogation about whether you are poor enough to deserve this benefit, and oh yes did I mention the WAITING? – all this and more is trying on the temper. From friendly banter to authoritative restatement of the rules to sharing a cigarette to offering somebody a task, people take care of each other’s mood, ensuring that tears and outbursts are rare and easily deflected.
- Finding tasks. It doesn’t take very much observation to realize that several people who are volunteers are not actually doing anything productive. This can be annoying when one is waiting at the food room and there is only one volunteer there who is authorized to distribute food. But aside from this annoyance, the fact that many people are actually doing nothing is a time honoured way of keeping as many people involved as possible in a work related situation. I’m not kidding – I’m sure we have all observed as one person is digging a hole and two people are watching at a road construction site. There are many similar situations at the food bank – one person managing the sign up book and one person watching (and sometimes two), one managing the forklift schedule and three drinking coffee, etc.
It was a major disruption in my life that brought me to living in south Etobicoke, in poverty, in the first place. I am benefitting greatly from this particular contribution of poor people showing me the ropes, managing my mood and including me in activities.
My next story will be about silence and learning to break it tactfully.
Judith
Once again there was no bread at the food bank, and in fact there wasn’t any in the back either so my “helper” and I were unable to take liberties. However, the absence of bread proved to be a conversation opener as I was waiting in the “holding tank” to go in and make my selections.
The person I am thinking of is a young woman, possibly in her mid-thirties, of slight build and gracefully dressed. She was accompanied by her son and daughter, both apparently between the ages of eight and twelve. They arrived just after we did.
The cause of our waiting proved to be that there was only one volunteer actually distributing food, another volunteer whose job it is to check us off in the computer system was absent from his office, and we were immediately preceded by a very chatty man who wanted to demonstrate his swollen feet to the computer volunteer when he finally did arrive. And so, the line was moving lethargically this particular afternoon.
As I believe I have written about before, an issue with being poor and being served is the constant message in the ambience that you are needy and helpless. My response to this ambience is to intentionally and ongoingly create strategies to shift the emotional atmosphere for myself and others. And so, I engaged the young woman briefly in joking conversation about the process of choosing, (and I use that word in ironic jest) from the meagre selection that would become available to us when we were ultimately allowed into the food room.
I started by asking her to bet whether or not there would be bread, but she wasn’t taking me up on that one. Her immediately response was “No bread!” and we laughed. As I peered through the window at the person with the big feet chatting up the volunteer, I noted out loud that there was a plentiful supply of peanut butter. We had a quick and affirming chat about how many cans of cranberry sauce and how many jars of peanut butter we had already collected from previous visits.
At this point I learned a strategy! The woman told me that she had frequently made peanut butter cookies for her kids. Now, as I’m sure you recognize, there is no flour or butter at the food bank. I realize that she had adopted a similar strategy to one that I frequently use; that she takes what is available and uses her small resources to buy something so that together she can make a food that is acceptable and nutritious. I’m not saying that I’m a genius for inventing this strategy – it is pretty obvious in fact. But I felt affirmed as she expressed a bit of her own story.
By this point, her kids were sitting quietly and we were chatting happily. It soon came time for me to enter the food room.
Once again the distributing volunteer was very generous, openly acknowledging that she was giving me more than she was supposed to, i.e. an extra can of salmon. There was fresh fruit this time. Perhaps the greatest moment was the point where the volunteer virtually thrust a packet of chocolate candy into my assistant’s hands. Although I cannot eat these things, I recognize her gesture as one of bringing a sense of abundance and gratitude into the space. I happily took the candies knowing that my personal assistants will make short work of them.
This reflection is about how poor people contribute to each other. The food bank is ninety percent run by volunteers, and ninety percent of those volunteers are also recipients. (These statistics are visual, not accurate.) Like the majority of the service system, the food bank could not run if it weren’t operated by the people who are served by it. Without access to the decision making, the intake or output processes, or any of the planning, it is poor people who are stepping in to the situation, working their way around the glitches, and making it work for each other.
Here are some of the contributions poor people make to the free food distribution system:
- Sorting the food, including disposing of rotten fruits and vegetables that arrive daily. As my assistant and I entered through the receiving area, we noted one young woman busily packing rotten potatoes into a disposal container.
- Distributing information, both globally and personally. A couple of small rooms are devoted to both legal and social questions and someone is always there to hand out pamphlets. Aside from that, individual questions are bantered around in the waiting rooms and in the line ups and around the coffee urn.
- Managing the emotional temperature. The line ups, the waiting, the sense of being personally inadequate, the struggles to meet the quirky schedules, the endless interrogation about whether you are poor enough to deserve this benefit, and oh yes did I mention the WAITING? – all this and more is trying on the temper. From friendly banter to authoritative restatement of the rules to sharing a cigarette to offering somebody a task, people take care of each other’s mood, ensuring that tears and outbursts are rare and easily deflected.
- Finding tasks. It doesn’t take very much observation to realize that several people who are volunteers are not actually doing anything productive. This can be annoying when one is waiting at the food room and there is only one volunteer there who is authorized to distribute food. But aside from this annoyance, the fact that many people are actually doing nothing is a time honoured way of keeping as many people involved as possible in a work related situation. I’m not kidding – I’m sure we have all observed as one person is digging a hole and two people are watching at a road construction site. There are many similar situations at the food bank – one person managing the sign up book and one person watching (and sometimes two), one managing the forklift schedule and three drinking coffee, etc.
It was a major disruption in my life that brought me to living in south Etobicoke, in poverty, in the first place. I am benefitting greatly from this particular contribution of poor people showing me the ropes, managing my mood and including me in activities.
My next story will be about silence and learning to break it tactfully.
Judith
Sunday, June 27, 2010
My First Interview
It has turned out to be more difficult than I imagined to find people who are on ODSP to interview about how they contribute to society. As I mentioned in my last posting, people who deal with Moneybags and other parts of the service system have a variety of reasons to keep their experience and strategies to themselves.
At my first attempt to set up an interview I asked a neighbour who has been very active on one of the committees here at the co-op. She seemed hesitant and as I was calling on the phone I decided to change tactics. We agreed that I would come and visit her the next day. We live only a few floors away from each other.
Shortly thereafter I received a call from one of her case workers who told me that if I had questions I should ask them of her, the service provider.
Now I may not have responded very effectively but frankly I was taken aback. I have known my neighbour now for the eight months that I have lived in this co-op and from the very beginning, she and her husband have provided me with social support and have also participated actively in committee work. So my response to the case worker was to firmly state that my interview with my neighbour had nothing to do with service provisions and that I would ask my questions directly of my neighbour. Then I abruptly hung up.
The next day I received an e-mail from my neighbour who withdrew from the co-op committee and asked me not to call or visit.
I have not yet figured out what to do to restore my relationship with my friend. I imagine that at some point we will get it together again. I have mostly been “kicking” myself because I am neither naïve nor inexperienced with the service system. I could have predicted that they are closely supervising my neighbour’s relationships in the name of protecting her from something. Rather than allowing me to explain myself, either to her directly or with a supervisor present, they likely have simply convinced her that the stress is too much for her even though neither she nor they have any idea what I would be asking of her.
My second attempt to find someone to interview found me asking a person who it turns out is not on ODSP. That is, of course, no big surprise as there are many ways poor people get “benefits” in our society. One isn’t stamped with ODSP on one’s forehead. I guessed that this person’s circumstances involved an emotional characteristic that made it difficult to hold down a job. I was wrong!
With experience no doubt I will figure out ways to more comfortably ask people if they would be willing to disclose where their benefits come from and if they would participate in this blog.
The third person that I asked is Fred, who I met at my first ODSP Support Group. Fred interpreted my request as a desire to know how he volunteers. Now volunteering IS one of the ways people contribute to society, but that’s not really what I am looking for. Fred’s take on the question was interesting to me though because it put me in the place of trying again to explain what I AM looking for. I made a draft and we got together to discuss it.
Fundamentally I am exploring how “needy” people contribute to their communities and to the larger society. In our language, and so in our organizations, we divide the helpless from the helping, the needy from the gifted. This division creates a mask, obscuring the reality that one process cannot exist without the other. In any “helping” relationship, both are giving. I am intimately interested in the economic side of this disguised relationship.
(Beyond this, even the idea that one is helping is suspect in my view, but I don’t want to get into that just now – another story perhaps.)
When I speak about economics I am referring to how people together create ways to take care of their daily needs for being sustained, educated, entertained, transported, etc. It has become abundantly clear to me that being poor is part of the rock bed of the economy of our society - an economy that cannot put many people to work as farmers or labourers. A large service and consumption oriented economy is an answer to a post-industrial lack of employment. But a service economy requires people who demand services. For example there can be no case worker without a “needy” person to sustain the process.
People who are labelled disabled contribute to our economy in a number of ways. I once counted twenty-six ways. From the child with autism in a regular classroom who causes his teacher to become a better educator, to the non-speaking person who makes everyone in their vicinity feel happier, people who are labelled disabled, and so people who are on ODSP in particular, continuously contribute invisibly.
The nature of these contributions is that they are relationship focused and so life sustaining without necessarily producing a result that can be counted in our data oriented world. Nevertheless without such contributions relationships themselves are diminished in their quality and sustainability. An unhappy customer shops elsewhere. A lazy teacher deprives hundreds of children of opportunities to love learning.
So, yes, I am interested in the fact that Fred frequently, on days when he feels well enough, volunteers. By his own account volunteering is an activity that has filled many hours of his week for many years. But I am more interested in the contribution that comes through in his voicemail message where he asks for prayers and offers blessings and otherwise puts the caller in mind of a spiritual dimension - an aspect of human experience frequently absent from our daily lives. In his own words: “I am available to provide assistance or help to another. Each day I try to make the world a little better by being considerate, understanding - a simple hello, or just a smile - a simple acknowledgement of the value of the person, the situation or organization.”
Fred and I talked quite openly for about an hour and there are many other details that he did not choose to share in the blog. He shared contributions that belong to some very ordinary jobs and some that don’t typically get paid for. He also shared stories of being blocked from receiving money by community members, family, service providers and Moneybags – all in the name of his so-called disability.
Throughout our time together I was struck by the straight forward manner in which he gave his details, by the occasional twinkle in his eyes and his gentle humour. Perhaps one of Fred’s greatest gifts to me is that he showed how a confident and intelligent man who has met many road blocks in his career and his faith can tell an honest story without leaving out difficult details - and yet do so without bitterness or recrimination.
May my stories live up to the standards that Fred has set for himself.
Judith
At my first attempt to set up an interview I asked a neighbour who has been very active on one of the committees here at the co-op. She seemed hesitant and as I was calling on the phone I decided to change tactics. We agreed that I would come and visit her the next day. We live only a few floors away from each other.
Shortly thereafter I received a call from one of her case workers who told me that if I had questions I should ask them of her, the service provider.
Now I may not have responded very effectively but frankly I was taken aback. I have known my neighbour now for the eight months that I have lived in this co-op and from the very beginning, she and her husband have provided me with social support and have also participated actively in committee work. So my response to the case worker was to firmly state that my interview with my neighbour had nothing to do with service provisions and that I would ask my questions directly of my neighbour. Then I abruptly hung up.
The next day I received an e-mail from my neighbour who withdrew from the co-op committee and asked me not to call or visit.
I have not yet figured out what to do to restore my relationship with my friend. I imagine that at some point we will get it together again. I have mostly been “kicking” myself because I am neither naïve nor inexperienced with the service system. I could have predicted that they are closely supervising my neighbour’s relationships in the name of protecting her from something. Rather than allowing me to explain myself, either to her directly or with a supervisor present, they likely have simply convinced her that the stress is too much for her even though neither she nor they have any idea what I would be asking of her.
My second attempt to find someone to interview found me asking a person who it turns out is not on ODSP. That is, of course, no big surprise as there are many ways poor people get “benefits” in our society. One isn’t stamped with ODSP on one’s forehead. I guessed that this person’s circumstances involved an emotional characteristic that made it difficult to hold down a job. I was wrong!
With experience no doubt I will figure out ways to more comfortably ask people if they would be willing to disclose where their benefits come from and if they would participate in this blog.
The third person that I asked is Fred, who I met at my first ODSP Support Group. Fred interpreted my request as a desire to know how he volunteers. Now volunteering IS one of the ways people contribute to society, but that’s not really what I am looking for. Fred’s take on the question was interesting to me though because it put me in the place of trying again to explain what I AM looking for. I made a draft and we got together to discuss it.
Fundamentally I am exploring how “needy” people contribute to their communities and to the larger society. In our language, and so in our organizations, we divide the helpless from the helping, the needy from the gifted. This division creates a mask, obscuring the reality that one process cannot exist without the other. In any “helping” relationship, both are giving. I am intimately interested in the economic side of this disguised relationship.
(Beyond this, even the idea that one is helping is suspect in my view, but I don’t want to get into that just now – another story perhaps.)
When I speak about economics I am referring to how people together create ways to take care of their daily needs for being sustained, educated, entertained, transported, etc. It has become abundantly clear to me that being poor is part of the rock bed of the economy of our society - an economy that cannot put many people to work as farmers or labourers. A large service and consumption oriented economy is an answer to a post-industrial lack of employment. But a service economy requires people who demand services. For example there can be no case worker without a “needy” person to sustain the process.
People who are labelled disabled contribute to our economy in a number of ways. I once counted twenty-six ways. From the child with autism in a regular classroom who causes his teacher to become a better educator, to the non-speaking person who makes everyone in their vicinity feel happier, people who are labelled disabled, and so people who are on ODSP in particular, continuously contribute invisibly.
The nature of these contributions is that they are relationship focused and so life sustaining without necessarily producing a result that can be counted in our data oriented world. Nevertheless without such contributions relationships themselves are diminished in their quality and sustainability. An unhappy customer shops elsewhere. A lazy teacher deprives hundreds of children of opportunities to love learning.
So, yes, I am interested in the fact that Fred frequently, on days when he feels well enough, volunteers. By his own account volunteering is an activity that has filled many hours of his week for many years. But I am more interested in the contribution that comes through in his voicemail message where he asks for prayers and offers blessings and otherwise puts the caller in mind of a spiritual dimension - an aspect of human experience frequently absent from our daily lives. In his own words: “I am available to provide assistance or help to another. Each day I try to make the world a little better by being considerate, understanding - a simple hello, or just a smile - a simple acknowledgement of the value of the person, the situation or organization.”
Fred and I talked quite openly for about an hour and there are many other details that he did not choose to share in the blog. He shared contributions that belong to some very ordinary jobs and some that don’t typically get paid for. He also shared stories of being blocked from receiving money by community members, family, service providers and Moneybags – all in the name of his so-called disability.
Throughout our time together I was struck by the straight forward manner in which he gave his details, by the occasional twinkle in his eyes and his gentle humour. Perhaps one of Fred’s greatest gifts to me is that he showed how a confident and intelligent man who has met many road blocks in his career and his faith can tell an honest story without leaving out difficult details - and yet do so without bitterness or recrimination.
May my stories live up to the standards that Fred has set for himself.
Judith
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Whew! Stinky!
Yesterday I attended my second ODSP Support Group meeting at a downtown Toronto community centre. I got there early as I had arranged to meet up with a gentleman I met there last month. I have begun to write his story from the point of view of the contributions he is making to his community and society. Yesterday we took an opportunity to explore why I want to write like this and how this is different from making a list of ways that he volunteers.
I’ll call him Fred. Fred pointed out why ODSP recipients might well be suspicious of anyone asking them questions of how they contribute. He himself has been audited twice. Regardless of my “good intentions”, information I write here may well be picked up and used in “the system” to raise questions, foster misunderstandings and create delays. Many people would rather not risk that extra burden.
Fred does not use the internet but in a few days I can fax him the revised story we worked on. I believe that the next blog entry after this one will give you a sense of how his compassion and gifts are expressed.
Aside from this exchange I was very glad I showed up for the monthly meeting – so glad that I think I am going to try to be a regular. There were three people (and one dog) present who had not been at the last gathering and it made for a very different dynamic. Last month’s chair, the man focused on advocacy with his reams of data re tussles at the government level to further restrict access to the “special diet” – he was there documents in hand but other concerns dominated the discussion this time.
The conversation still centred on one person - the woman with the dog - but its focus was on strategies for getting as much as possible out of Moneybags. This is of prime interest to me! There we sat, gloating over potential treasure like the very thieves the system deems us to be, reviewing the ins and outs, ups and downs of a very complex set of rules that determine our financial context.
Perhaps the most fascinating moment was when someone revealed that the tracking system used by ODSP was created in another country – Sweden he believed – and that it is known to be full of glitches. One of the most common snafu apparently is the random mailing of letters from – guess who – R. Jackson (see previous blog!) to hapless recipients who get “informed” that they have been overpaid or are being cut off, or ….
It’s a rare and beautiful moment in life to discover that one is right. I am enjoying it!
So, indeed, I did receive a notification last year, relative to nothing at all, that I had been overpaid, that my non-existent benefit was being clawed back, then a few months later that my overpayment had been resolved. The entire set of events that my case worker had absolutely no knowledge of really did occur as an extraordinarily intricate fart of a computerized tracking system that chews the cud of its own self generated data. Whew! Stinky!
I recall the two occasions when I was cut off my benefit. I appeared as requested in a tiny sealed room. This room is provided with one way mirrors in the two doors, front and back, no windows and a massive desk stretching across the entire room, built as a solid piece to the floor. In this room the case worker and the client are structurally separated into different worlds as if coming to a common approach to life would be the most dangerous outcome ever to occur to the Province of Ontario.
Sitting in such a room, I have spoken to three case workers at different times. I now have a very different understanding of why they all asked me prying questions, examined the paperwork closely to see if mine matched theirs, then left the room for twenty minutes or more while I sweated in the airless cell and wondered somewhat panickedly if anyone would come to let me out eventually. Each when they returned was rather sweet and apologetic (and one rather flirtatious). Both times I was promptly reinstated.
I now understand what they all experience but must not tell me. The ODSP case workers spend untold hours of each week of their work life behind the cell doors correcting the chaos generated by the electronic money distribution system they all serve.
A great deal more was revealed yesterday – indeed grist for another few stories I am sure. Perhaps the most heartening was the wealth of resources we each could claim among ourselves. I have the Registered Disability Savings Plan manual. Another has information about the Disability Tax Credit. Another has the ODSP “dictionary” – a primary on the terms that are used to determine if a person qualifies for various benefits.
We agreed to bring and share our resources next month. I am excited with anticipation!
Judith
I’ll call him Fred. Fred pointed out why ODSP recipients might well be suspicious of anyone asking them questions of how they contribute. He himself has been audited twice. Regardless of my “good intentions”, information I write here may well be picked up and used in “the system” to raise questions, foster misunderstandings and create delays. Many people would rather not risk that extra burden.
Fred does not use the internet but in a few days I can fax him the revised story we worked on. I believe that the next blog entry after this one will give you a sense of how his compassion and gifts are expressed.
Aside from this exchange I was very glad I showed up for the monthly meeting – so glad that I think I am going to try to be a regular. There were three people (and one dog) present who had not been at the last gathering and it made for a very different dynamic. Last month’s chair, the man focused on advocacy with his reams of data re tussles at the government level to further restrict access to the “special diet” – he was there documents in hand but other concerns dominated the discussion this time.
The conversation still centred on one person - the woman with the dog - but its focus was on strategies for getting as much as possible out of Moneybags. This is of prime interest to me! There we sat, gloating over potential treasure like the very thieves the system deems us to be, reviewing the ins and outs, ups and downs of a very complex set of rules that determine our financial context.
Perhaps the most fascinating moment was when someone revealed that the tracking system used by ODSP was created in another country – Sweden he believed – and that it is known to be full of glitches. One of the most common snafu apparently is the random mailing of letters from – guess who – R. Jackson (see previous blog!) to hapless recipients who get “informed” that they have been overpaid or are being cut off, or ….
It’s a rare and beautiful moment in life to discover that one is right. I am enjoying it!
So, indeed, I did receive a notification last year, relative to nothing at all, that I had been overpaid, that my non-existent benefit was being clawed back, then a few months later that my overpayment had been resolved. The entire set of events that my case worker had absolutely no knowledge of really did occur as an extraordinarily intricate fart of a computerized tracking system that chews the cud of its own self generated data. Whew! Stinky!
I recall the two occasions when I was cut off my benefit. I appeared as requested in a tiny sealed room. This room is provided with one way mirrors in the two doors, front and back, no windows and a massive desk stretching across the entire room, built as a solid piece to the floor. In this room the case worker and the client are structurally separated into different worlds as if coming to a common approach to life would be the most dangerous outcome ever to occur to the Province of Ontario.
Sitting in such a room, I have spoken to three case workers at different times. I now have a very different understanding of why they all asked me prying questions, examined the paperwork closely to see if mine matched theirs, then left the room for twenty minutes or more while I sweated in the airless cell and wondered somewhat panickedly if anyone would come to let me out eventually. Each when they returned was rather sweet and apologetic (and one rather flirtatious). Both times I was promptly reinstated.
I now understand what they all experience but must not tell me. The ODSP case workers spend untold hours of each week of their work life behind the cell doors correcting the chaos generated by the electronic money distribution system they all serve.
A great deal more was revealed yesterday – indeed grist for another few stories I am sure. Perhaps the most heartening was the wealth of resources we each could claim among ourselves. I have the Registered Disability Savings Plan manual. Another has information about the Disability Tax Credit. Another has the ODSP “dictionary” – a primary on the terms that are used to determine if a person qualifies for various benefits.
We agreed to bring and share our resources next month. I am excited with anticipation!
Judith
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Letters from Money Bags
I received three letters from ODSP since last I reported on my conflictual relationship with the Money Bag. Happily none of them were about cutting me off. I am counting my blessings and expressing my gratitude to my case worker who took the time to figure out one of the ongoing issues that kept making the system spit me out.
The first letter was to tell me they had paid me too much in January, that being the month I first began receiving my CPP benefit. I will be receiving $55 less on my ODSP cheque for approximately five months until the “overpayment” is reimbursed.
The second letter was truly confusing but the long and short of it was that I received $100 due to the Ontario government making some kind of GST to HST conversion reimbursement. Eventually I realized everyone in the province got a minimum of $100 in this process. It is part of the preparation, I believe, to all of us getting hit with an extra tax in a few weeks.
The third letter was a precise duplicate of the first letter except for a different date. I guess R. Jackson (whose signature is on these letters) wanted to make sure I noticed the first letter. I wonder some days if I will ever have the pleasure of meeting R. Jackson.
It is puzzling (and often more than puzzling!) to be an utterly non-participating member of a conversation. These letters will come whether or not I read them, whether or not I respond to them and regardless of any impact they might have on me as a person. Truly someone could (I’ll bet somebody has!) inserted a Social Insurance Number somewhere in the system and managed to get the system to generate letters to the Social Insurance Number without there needing to be an actual person in any way attached to that Number.
One of the peculiarities of being a non-participating member of a conversation is how utterly unimportant it is to have or express a feeling or thought in the context of the conversation. It makes no difference to the letters, and whatever or whoever generates the letters, if I have any expression about the letters and their content.
I have in the past received genuine letters. Typically receiving a letter causes me to have an emotional response and several thoughts. For example I have received letters telling me that somebody is about to take a legal action against me. Such letters usually cause me to experience initially fear and then some anger and possibly regret. The thoughts I have had in such situations usually lead me to either prepare to defend myself or to explain and/or reconcile with the person who sent the letter. I have never actually been to court for such a suit and so I consider myself an effective communicator and reconcilliator.
As a person, when I receive an ODSP letter, I tend to have similar responses and thoughts. Now this is the problem as far as I am concerned – a waste of psychic energy - as there is absolutely no use in having either emotion or a thought relative to these counterfeit missives (fakes). I am certain that R. Jackson has absolutely no way of anticipating or receiving any kind of reaction from me. In fact I am kind of doubtful if R. Jackson actually exists, as a person I mean.
I can say this with some certainty because while I was away last year on the Peace Tour (www.peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com) I received similar letters about overpayments and finally a letter that my overpayment had been resolved. I had no idea to what these letters referred and no way to respond given my highly unstable situation at the time. When I returned to Ontario I enquired as to the nature of the overpayment and reimbursement, and my case worker had no idea or record of such events. Everything worked out somehow even though I have no idea what the “everything” was all about and never made a single call or sent a single letter in response to the letters sent to me.
I am also puzzling about advocacy and its relationship to this nonpersonal generation of quasi-communication on the subject of my income. Given that humans do in fact feel and think no matter how irrelevant it may be to do so, perhaps advocating serves the purpose of being an outlet for expression on the one hand while on the other having almost the same impact on the system as feeling and doing - absolutely none.
It is said that Ivan Illich, a defrocked priest who stood for responding humanly in the face of many absurdities and atrocities, recommended standing in public in perfect silence in the face of wanting to resist nuclear proliferation. His point was I believe that emotion, thought and language belong to the realm of community and relationship. In the presence of the annihilation of relationship, feeling, thinking and speaking are a way of giving away power. Only silence can sustain empowerment.
I am not certain that Illich was right. I do take his point that when there is no intention of listening then acting like there is amounts to exhausting one’s own personal power. The question remains: “How does one act as person in such a situation?” That is something I am exploring in doing this blog.
Judith
The first letter was to tell me they had paid me too much in January, that being the month I first began receiving my CPP benefit. I will be receiving $55 less on my ODSP cheque for approximately five months until the “overpayment” is reimbursed.
The second letter was truly confusing but the long and short of it was that I received $100 due to the Ontario government making some kind of GST to HST conversion reimbursement. Eventually I realized everyone in the province got a minimum of $100 in this process. It is part of the preparation, I believe, to all of us getting hit with an extra tax in a few weeks.
The third letter was a precise duplicate of the first letter except for a different date. I guess R. Jackson (whose signature is on these letters) wanted to make sure I noticed the first letter. I wonder some days if I will ever have the pleasure of meeting R. Jackson.
It is puzzling (and often more than puzzling!) to be an utterly non-participating member of a conversation. These letters will come whether or not I read them, whether or not I respond to them and regardless of any impact they might have on me as a person. Truly someone could (I’ll bet somebody has!) inserted a Social Insurance Number somewhere in the system and managed to get the system to generate letters to the Social Insurance Number without there needing to be an actual person in any way attached to that Number.
One of the peculiarities of being a non-participating member of a conversation is how utterly unimportant it is to have or express a feeling or thought in the context of the conversation. It makes no difference to the letters, and whatever or whoever generates the letters, if I have any expression about the letters and their content.
I have in the past received genuine letters. Typically receiving a letter causes me to have an emotional response and several thoughts. For example I have received letters telling me that somebody is about to take a legal action against me. Such letters usually cause me to experience initially fear and then some anger and possibly regret. The thoughts I have had in such situations usually lead me to either prepare to defend myself or to explain and/or reconcile with the person who sent the letter. I have never actually been to court for such a suit and so I consider myself an effective communicator and reconcilliator.
As a person, when I receive an ODSP letter, I tend to have similar responses and thoughts. Now this is the problem as far as I am concerned – a waste of psychic energy - as there is absolutely no use in having either emotion or a thought relative to these counterfeit missives (fakes). I am certain that R. Jackson has absolutely no way of anticipating or receiving any kind of reaction from me. In fact I am kind of doubtful if R. Jackson actually exists, as a person I mean.
I can say this with some certainty because while I was away last year on the Peace Tour (www.peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com) I received similar letters about overpayments and finally a letter that my overpayment had been resolved. I had no idea to what these letters referred and no way to respond given my highly unstable situation at the time. When I returned to Ontario I enquired as to the nature of the overpayment and reimbursement, and my case worker had no idea or record of such events. Everything worked out somehow even though I have no idea what the “everything” was all about and never made a single call or sent a single letter in response to the letters sent to me.
I am also puzzling about advocacy and its relationship to this nonpersonal generation of quasi-communication on the subject of my income. Given that humans do in fact feel and think no matter how irrelevant it may be to do so, perhaps advocating serves the purpose of being an outlet for expression on the one hand while on the other having almost the same impact on the system as feeling and doing - absolutely none.
It is said that Ivan Illich, a defrocked priest who stood for responding humanly in the face of many absurdities and atrocities, recommended standing in public in perfect silence in the face of wanting to resist nuclear proliferation. His point was I believe that emotion, thought and language belong to the realm of community and relationship. In the presence of the annihilation of relationship, feeling, thinking and speaking are a way of giving away power. Only silence can sustain empowerment.
I am not certain that Illich was right. I do take his point that when there is no intention of listening then acting like there is amounts to exhausting one’s own personal power. The question remains: “How does one act as person in such a situation?” That is something I am exploring in doing this blog.
Judith
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