Welfare

Use the links below to learn about American social welfare in general or to learn how you can apply for assistance.

Catalog Links

• Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform
  

  Hailed as a great success, welfare reform resulted in a dramatic decline in the welfare rolls--from 4.4 million families in 1996 to 2 million in 2003. But what does this "success" look like to the welfare mothers and welfare caseworkers who experienced it? In Flat Broke With Children, Sharon Hays tells us the story of welfare reform from inside the welfare office and inside the lives of welfare read more >>
  
  

  Hailed as a great success, welfare reform resulted in a dramatic decline in the welfare rolls--from 4.4 million families in 1996 to 2 million in 2003. But what does this "success" look like to the welfare mothers and welfare caseworkers who experienced it? In Flat Broke With Children, Sharon Hays tells us the story of welfare reform from inside the welfare office and inside the lives of welfare mothers, describing the challenges that welfare recipients face in managing their work, their families, and the rules and regulations of welfare reform.Welfare reform, experienced on the ground, is not a rosy picture. The majority of adult welfare clients are mothers--over 90 percent--and the time limits imposed by welfare reform throw millions of these mostly unmarried, desperate women into the labor market, where they must accept low wages, the most menial work, the poorest hours, with no benefits, and little flexibility. Hays provides a vivid portrait of their lives--debunking many of the stereotypes we have of welfare recipients--but she also steps back to explore what welfare reform reveals about the meaning of work and family life in our society. In particular, she argues that an inherent contradiction lies at the heart of welfare policy, which emphasizes traditional family values even as its ethic of "personal responsibility" requires women to work and leave their children in childcare or at home alone all day long.Hays devoted three years to visiting welfare clients and two welfare offices, one in a medium-sized town in the Southeast, another in a large, metropolitan area in the West. Drawing on this hands-on research, Flat Broke With Children is the first book to explore the impact of welfare reform on motherhood, marriage, and work in women's lives, and the first book to offer us a portrait of how welfare reform plays out in thousands of local welfare offices and in millions of homes across the nation.

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• Under the Safety Net: the Health and Social Welfare of the Homeless in American
  

  In 1984 the Health Care for the Homeless Project (HCHP) was launched to provide health and social services to the homeless in 19 major American cities. With $25 million in funds from two major foundations, HCHP served over 100,000 clients in a five-year period. This book, edited by the director of community medicine at New York's St. Vincent Hospital, offers case studies and personal observatio read more >>
  
  

  In 1984 the Health Care for the Homeless Project (HCHP) was launched to provide health and social services to the homeless in 19 major American cities. With $25 million in funds from two major foundations, HCHP served over 100,000 clients in a five-year period. This book, edited by the director of community medicine at New York's St. Vincent Hospital, offers case studies and personal observations of HCHP workers. As a whole, these perspectives provide a summary of how and why the project was created and detail the successes and pitfalls of operating community health programs. Most of the accounts are concerned with the major medical problems of the homeless--AIDS, tuberculosis, hypertension, mental illness--and the challenge of caring for people often unable to provide themselves with food and shelter. Although the contributors are obviously most used to writing for other professionals, their from-the-front-lines reporting vividly illustrates the tragedy of homelessness in America. Highly recommended. Karen McNally Bensing, The Benjamin Rose Inst. Lib., Cleveland Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information, Inc. (Library Journal Review)

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Web Links

• DeKalb County Family and Children's Services

  Get information of how to apply for assistance such as food stamps and Medicaid.  This site also has information about assistance for refugees who are living in DeKalb County.

• Georgia Department of Human Services

  Use this government website to apply for foodstamps online, find a foodbank in your area, learn how to apply for energy assistance, or find a list of shelters for victims of domestic abuse.

• Georgia Department of Labor

  This is the site to check for information about unemployment benefits.

• U.S. Office of Family Assistance

  U.S. government website that outlines Federal programs designed to provide assistance to needy families.