Bureaucracy, the Thief of Dignity : A stolen welfare check sends a young woman into a social services limbo of misinformation and frustration.
Any woman who has experienced having her purse stolen knows how victimized I feel. Recently, it happened to me. The theft was bad enough, but because my Aid to Families With Dependent Children check was in the purse, along with enough photo ID to cash it, I was victimized by the policies of L.A. County as well.
A police report was filed and I tried without success to find an emergency AFDC phone number to report a stolen check. Nothing more could be done about it until the following morning. At 7 a.m. I placed a call to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, East Valley Division. Though the office opens at 7, I was told that there was nobody in the office that could help me until 8 a.m. and was given two phone numbers to call: (818) 901-4301 or 901-4294. At 8:00 I began to call and continued pressing the redial key for the next four and a half hours at which time I had the operator attempt an emergency breakthrough. I was informed that both those lines were off the hook. (Both lines remained off the hook long after the office had closed.)
I then called the duty supervisor at East Valley who had given me the two numbers to begin with. I was transferred from department to department and ended up supposedly ringing a supervisors’ office phone. No one ever answered that phone; I listened to it ring for over an hour.
I then went down to East Valley in person, armed with the police report and what little identification I had left. After waiting in many lines for many hours, l was told that even though I had made a police report and tried to alert their office to the robbery, nothing could be done for 10 days. The check could not be canceled immediately to prevent the thieves from cashing it. I was told that on the 10th day I could sign an affidavit swearing that the theft had taken place and, if the check had not yet been cashed, a new check would be issued. However, if the check had been cashed by the 10th day, then I was out of luck.
Why, I wonder, in this age of computers, can everybody stop payment on a check immediately except the County of Los Angeles? There are those of us on welfare who really need the aid to support our families and are grateful for it. The rude and impersonal treatment I received at East Valley stripped me of my dignity and reduced me to tears. I am a struggling single mom/college student who’s only been able to make ends meet with my welfare check and the educational loans that I’ll be paying back for years.
Living in L.A. on $456 a month is incredibly difficult. Perhaps our welfare benefits are so low because the County of Los Angeles allows these criminals the grace period of 10 days to rob those of us who truly need the aid, not to mention robbing you, the taxpayers, of your hard-earned wages.
K. SIMPSON
Los Angeles