Salut dear loves,

It’s now 1:52pm on a heat-soaked Tuesday afternoon. The sky is a deep blue with feral splashes of white and carefully placed strokes of yellow courtesy of this year’s summer sun. The wind is filled with the daily commute, the cries and laughter of toddlers & infants and a blended scent of tobacco, littered garbage, mobile vendors and the cooked tar from ongoing construction of Market Street here in Philadelphia, PA.

I stand on the corner watching mother and child file into the large building in front of me. The brick painted pink makes one feel warm and relaxed. SAFE, with thoughts of childhood dollhouses, playtime and care. The idea of painting a government building that handles the needs of primarily single mothers with financial difficulties is, in my opinion, one of the more beautiful displays of branched capitalism I’ve seen (this is in no way an “I hate America” article… Just the facts my dear readers).

I am grateful to have the honor of introducing you to Ms. Yolanda Allofus Jones (real names have been hidden to protect the innocent).

She walks in the middle of weary, famished, worried and dispirited women, filed into the second floor waiting room like a generational study of the impecunious.

Y: Are you in line?

T: No ma’am, I’m here waiting for someone…Are you ok?

I noticed the look of despair tracing her youthful but hurriedly matured face with a saddened familiarity that was mirrored on throughout the area.

Y: “NO! We go through the same thing all the time here. My food stamps were discontinued again, my children can’t eat like we need to and I have to spend the money set aside for rent and utilities on food for the last two months. Now we’re being threatened with eviction and we have no lights on in the house.”

T: How did this happen? Have you spoken to anyone at all about it?

Y: “It took them three months to even begin my benefits. It took all of my strength to humble myself enough and put my pride aside to file for welfare. I filled out a form online and was told to call and set it up no later than 2 days after filling out the application in order to qualify. I called them the very next day and called every day until I got a response which was three weeks after the day I called. They gave us assistance the first month and suddenly stopped, saying that more paperwork was required by a set date to continue service. I turned in the papers they asked for before the deadline, waited three more weeks with no call backs and no letters only to find that they canceled me and my family out of their system all together and now deny ever getting the paperwork.

I’m here today because I was told to drop my papers in their drop box that was said to have been checked and emptied every evening only to find out that we haven’t gotten our help because they didn’t do their job and they only check it once a week (not as I was directed and not as its stated on the drop box). I’ve called so many different offices only to be passed around and told to call the supervisor here who refuses to return any calls or answer any calls from me. I left a message in tears on her phone and still nothing. I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know what else to do. I never thought I’d be here and now that I am I understand a little better about the hardships people who are forced to go through this treatment over and over endure. It’s like we’re animals or something to them. The sad thing is that I probably got more education than all of them behind that glass but they treat me like I’m nothing. It’s like they break us down more and more each month. You know you can’t even tell them if you’re with the father ’cause they won’t help you. They’ll put him in the system and won’t help you at all if you’re living together. Like we’ll help the mother and child (sometimes) but we won’t support or agree with the bettering of a poor family struggling in this economy. The worst part is that if you fight it they make it impossible to get the aid you need. They intentionally hold up your records.”

Tears pressed back to avoid the added pain of her small child seeing the despondency that life has offered mommy, Yolanda stands in her power suit, the remaining whispers of the voice of her former life of job security, while standing in a post-recession America. I watch her fade down the gloomy corridor lined with cubicles, discontented staff and life in grayscale.

According to the statistics, whites form the largest racial group on welfare, dispelling the myth that only unmotivated, drug abusing ethnic women are on welfare to take advantage of the tax payers and the government. The more frightening truth is that welfare is for most of us who are just a few missed paychecks from our reality.

There are tricks employed by hunters to ornament the exterior of a cage with familiar colors, pleasurable sounds and smells to attract the vulnerable prey, and once inside the cage they slam the door shut, ration the life the hunted enjoyed freely and do it all under the guise of help. I stand, survey the room capturing the prison-like tones and comparing them to the engaging colors I saw looking from across the street. I reach to stop my recorder when, from behind me, I hear…

“Mister, could you please step this way with me”?

Please visit www.tevsmith.net for updates on Yolanda and stay tuned for Pt 2 here at RootSpeak.

Te V. Smith | Contributor

Te V. Smith is a poet, musician, writer and singer who has shared stages, studios and street corners with the likes of HBO, VH-1, Current TV, and several European Colleges and Universities.

Read more by Te on RootSpeak

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• tevsmith.net