Yes, I think they care if I eat. About a month ago, I reported on another thread that the line at our food bank was getting longer and longer (I live in a rural area with very high unemployment). I discovered in the paper this morning why that is: SNAP was cut off to 10,000 eligible Mainers if they didn't work or volunteer. But here the opportunities to work or volunteer are not available. Great move toward self sufficiency and saving tax payers from benefits fraud--but guess what -- THESE PEOPLE ARE STILL HUNGRY.
We are beginning to experience more theft like laptops getting lifted from cars in parking lots and packages left by the UPS man getting stolen. People are desperate. This is what happens.
Okay, so they don't want to enroll in a vocational program. They don't want (or can't get) a job. They don't want to volunteer 20 hours a month. I don't think that's asking all that much to receive taxpayer dollars to buy food.
So they look for the next effortless freebie which is food banks. Even if one can't go to school for some reason or get a part-time job, volunteer work is not that hard to find. Nursing homes, hospitals, homeless shelters and so on are all looking for any kind of free help they can get.
Most of those people dropped out of the SNAP's program. It doesn't seem to me they were all that hungry after all. If there absolutely no jobs available in your area, then it's time to move the hell out of there. I haven't been to one McDonald's that's not looking for workers over here.
A lot of Maine is doing fine. We are one of the counties that is far above the national and even state unemployment average because of rapid decline in paper mills and associated lumbering. We have two hospitals.. Only a handful of nursing homes left (reduction in state payments to Medicare have forced the closure of many in the past few years). There is no public transportation system to get people from Point A to Point B. The county seat doesn't even have a taxi. We have no homeless shelters. The places the State approves for volunteering are full up and many of the folks on welfare have extremely low academic skills -- they are nowhere near ready for a training program. The obstacles to being productive, contributing members of the community are a lot more complex, sometimes deep rooted, and harder to fix than most folks here understand. It is not an overnight or even a one-term "fix" to resolve. Yes, there are people who are very crafty and skilled at milking the system for every cent they can get, but I can only think of one, out of the many, many, I have known, who would easily transition to work if she were forced.
I don't like laziness anymore than you do and I hate the defeated mess that generations of welfare have imposed on entire generations of the poor. But it is not just laziness that prevents people from working and they are not you and me, born with the brains and the luck to be given the opportunity to learn a strong work ethic.
Anyway, I'm rambling, but it's not so simple as you think. There are programs here that are trying to chip away at some of the obstacles, but it is slow and the funding doesn't come close to matching the need. Some of these folks can't be "saved," no matter what you do. So you have to make a decision. Do you leave them hungry or feed them so they're not breaking into your home or squatting in your summer cottage for the winter, stealing and dealing drugs to eat? I guess it's your choice, but you should know what you're actually up against before you decide. And right now it sounds as if you don't.