"There is nothing wrong with me."

Today was my first real day on this project, and I am really having mixed emotions on the entire day. Overall, I love what I am going to be doing, and I think that CareerLink is offering a great service to people who need help finding a job. It is definitely interesting being on non administrative side, listening to these people talk about some of their decisions, the consequences, and how much all they want is a little bit of help.

I spent the morning at the ID clinic organized by the Workforce Investment Board. The clinic clearly outlined the societal and structural problems that lead to poverty and homelessness, as everyone who came in was really interested in just getting back their ID, social security card, or birth certificate so that they could get jobs or prove identity to get an income. The system really does create a catch 22—You need a driver’s license or state issued ID to work, drive, or get welfare. You need a social security card and birth certificate to get your license. However, you need photo ID and your birth certificate to get your social security card, and you need your social security card and photo ID to get your birth certificate. People who needed all three were in a very tight spot, to say the least! My heart really went out to the first guy that talked to me. He was requesting a new driver’s license so that he could drive to work and get a real job. Apparently about 12 or 13 years ago he was caught driving on an expired license. Before this he had never been pulled over or ticketed even so much as a parking ticket, but he had not renewed his license because he couldn’t afford it, and he could not pay the fine because he really could not afford that. He ended up losing his job because he could no longer drive to work, and he could not set up a payment plan for the fine since he no longer had an income. The fine kept gaining interest, and two weeks ago he got a letter saying that there was now a warrant out for his arrest over this fine which had grown into the thousands of dollars. All he wanted was his license so that he could make an income and afford to pay off the fine. A woman from the legal clinic kept questioning why he wasn’t on welfare and eventually forced him to talk to the welfare department. The man just kept repeating, “There is nothing wrong with me. I just need my license so I can get a job and go to work. I don’t need welfare. There is nothing wrong with me.”

This was how everyone I met today felt about welfare. They did not want to be on it; they wanted to get a job and provide for themselves and their families. I met with about 8 people in the morning for the ID Clinic, most of whom came from the Water Street Rescue Mission and all of whom needed photo ID to get a job. Most of them could not afford to get to Penn Dot to renew their license because of the distance (Penn Dot is on Rohrerstown Road, which is not too accessible on foot from the Mission) and the $10 to $26 payment for the actual renewal. Aside from just the costs, the paperwork is extensive, confusing, and extremely frustrating if you just want to get ID. Overall I was really impressed with the ID Clinic, especially since it was the first time they have ever tried it and I don’t think I realized how much of a difference something like that could make to a person’s whole life.

This afternoon I met with Heidi for the first time. She wanted to get to CareerLink at 2:00 for her 3:30 appointment, just to make sure her resume was perfect and ready when she met with Bobby Joe. I really do have a lot of confidence in her, and I really believe that she should have no problem finding a job. She is a certified medical assistant, currently working two jobs that make barely above minimum wage, very personable and determined to find a well-paying job. On paper, she is the perfect applicant coming out of homelessness to look for a job, complete with longer term jobs and experience, proof of dedication, and an education. Of course, there are individual reasons as to why she doesn’t have a job, and I think listening to her really opened my eyes a bit as to how much you really need to consider both sides. She is working hard, and on a minimum wage job (even with two jobs) she is not making enough to move into her own apartment. However, she does have three kids with another one on the way, a “man” who is currently in jail over something so serious that he will seriously struggle finding a job or living in a shelter (the fact that she did not describe it explicitly also suggests something, since within the first 10 minutes of meeting her I felt like there were no boundaries in what she told me about her life), and is recovering from drug abuse that caused her kids and house to be taken away.

CareerLink itself is…pretty complex. The system really is great, especially on paper and in theory. The website is fairly user friendly, and for anyone with any experience or knowledge of a computer it shouldn’t be too difficult to navigate (I will see how this works for someone with no experience in the coming weeks, but Heidi was pretty comfortable on the computer and did not encounter too many problems). Bobby Joe had given me a handful of pink passes last week to use in the computer lab, so we just went in and sat down at one of the computers. We didn’t notice the signs about signing in or anything (I didn’t even think of looking, which didn’t help…), and I assumed that pass would be fine. On two separate occasions we were asked to show this pass and explain what we were doing there, being told that the pass was not real and did not give us access. Thankfully one of the employees that helped with the ID clinic in the morning recognized me and explained what we were doing there, but I do not know what we need to do when he is not there, or even worse if I am not there. If necessary I could explain where I was from and what I was doing, find Bobby Joe, and work out the situation. I still am not really sure what the correct procedure is to use the computers, although I will try to look into it for the next client I meet. The rest of our session went really well though, and Bobby Joe really was great with Heidi. She was honest and compassionate about the situation, which is probably the most necessary and difficult approach in that line of work.