The welfare and social services systems: are they providing adequate care??

[PapaJupe2k]

Well the question goes out to all of you enlightened and more educated schmoes than myself. I'm not that familiar with how things work, so lets here your thoughts. I bring this up because it kind of hit home for me recently and I'll tell you a little story about that. For those that know of my stories I'll try to keep it as short and to the point as possible.

Well there is this guy in my town that is sort of considered like the town crazy, that is a bad term but I'm just making a point. Alot of people give him alot of unnecessary shit, and that bothers me to no end.:mad: Well anyway he is seriously mentally handicapped and disturbed. He spends him spare time riding around on his bicycle and picking up cans for the 5 cent deposit here in Iowa and trading it in for Vodka. Anyway he used to live down the street from this buddy of mine and when riding by on his bike he would stop and chat whenever he was outside or in his garage. One day my friend went over to his house to help him do something and you wouldn't believe how this guy was living. Garbage strewn all over his house, broken toilet, window broken out of the front. He was just pissing and shitting in buckets on the floor of his living room.:eek: Bugs all over the place. Shouldn't this guy have a caseworker or somebody to check on him and help him out from time to time? I know he has what is called a "payee" which handles his money for him, shouldn't he report this if he sees it? I didn't see it first hand or know about it until much later, but I definately would have called someone if I had known. That is utterly ridiculous for him to live in that kind of squalor! He obviously needs some or help or to placed in a home. Keep in mind this isn't New York City, this is BumFuck Iowa, population 28,000. Everyone in town knows the guy, how does he fall through the cracks? :mad: The house has since burned down and I dont know where he's living now.

We just saw him a couple weeks ago when having a big cookout- drunkfest. He rode by on his bike and we gave him our emptys and hooked him up with some food and cigarettes. You should have seen this guy eat! We had to stop him after two platefuls. It makes you wonder when the last time he ate was. We had to make him leave after he ate though because the stench was unbearable, he obviously hadn't showered in a while. We were glad to do it, but some poeple couldn't believe we did. Why not, we even hooked him up with some booze, hey why not if his quality of life is so bad as it is, why not give him some pleasure? Things like this just make me almost ill.

So to late about making the story short huh? Opinions? Thoughts? Comments? Similar stories of your own on the welfare system?

[ANavissi500]

I'm not exactly sure. On the one hand, I learned in my sociology class how crappy the welfare system is and how hard it is on the families who are barely scraping by, but on the other hand, I've worked in a grocery store and all of the people with foodstamps seem to get an adequate amount of money. A 350/month food budget seems like it can be done if you just avoid the extravagant items and go with the generic.

[jeo4]

Often times, even in society today, mentally ill citizens are homeless and ignored. They try to get help, but it isn't easy. And no, the government isn't much help. Helping these people is like pulling teeth, too, because they have their pride just like we do. They'd rather not take a hand-out. But eventually, they have no choice. If they haven't eaten in a while, they will eat like their bodies are starving because they literally are. It makes you feel for them, but the government is already out of money and running through it faster than they get it.

[JohnTheHenchman]

Middle Class families like mine who have a hard time getting every bill paid deserves to be compensated with some sort of welfare.

Welfare is joke, plain and simple.

[bmain77]

My dad is a social worker so I get to hear all the time how messed up the system is. It's next to impossible to help a lot of people out. I mean someone working for minimum wage at McDonalds trying to support a family may not be able to get any aid because they are making too much money.

In my dad's case processes that once took him a minutes to complete now may take him days and even weeks because of all the paperwork and hoops they now have to jump through to get anything done.

For that guy papajupe is talking about it seems like there must be a local community mental health administration that could be called or something. But then again I think every small town as people like that around.