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marilyn220 - get your own life! You don't even have 1/2 your facts straight (re-read original post since you have so much time on your hands) and obviously are overly opinionated and quite bored to keep negatively posting here. Go find other posts to annoy people on. You are a bored bully hiding behind a computer and you sound like the exact kind of person who has contributed to our screwed up system!
I'll be fine! I've been unemployed for only 3 months in 2014 (other 3 months that are affecting my unemployment were in 2013 - I worked 6 months in between because I do work hard and don't try to take advantage of the system. I took the first job offer I got because I wasn't trying to take advantage and it ended up being a terrible company. I'd probably have been better off continuing to collect the Unemployment then and waiting for a better job offer but hind-site is 20/20). 6 months of employment issues in 20yrs isn't going to ruin my entire career path. It's a misstep not end of the world. I have interviews lined up for the week coming and will keep submitting applications and ultimately get a job in the near future. Obviously some people will sit around bored, combing the internet for posts to negatively comment on because they have nothing better to do with their lives. Sounds like the best life ever! I want to be just like you one day!
Yeah, yeah.
Here's the link to that website I posted earlier again:
Exactly. The HRA worker doesn't care about how much you used to make, what position you had before, how you never claimed benefits or that you've "worked all of your life" and paid over $50k in taxes over the years.
She gives this long biography about her life as though it's supposed to actually MEAN something. She's been out of work for 12 months and still believes she'll nab that mythical $100K a year job she had when she got laid off. Her and all of the other millions of six figure professionals that got laid off during the years that are now working at Walmart, McDonalds, or trying to collect "disability" or social security early.
NO ONE CARES at the WELFARE OFFICE.
Just take your seat next to those "lazy people" and wait for your number to be called like everyone else.
What people are in denial about is if you don't secure a new job soon after you get laid off, it becomes harder and harder. One year without employment in many fields is utter disaster. She didn't say what she did, so we don't have the full circumstances but from the info given her it seems pretty grim.
marilyn220 - get your own life! You don't even have 1/2 your facts straight (re-read original post since you have so much time on your hands) and obviously are overly opinionated and quite bored to keep negatively posting here. Go find other posts to annoy people on. You are a bored bully hiding behind a computer and you sound like the exact kind of person who has contributed to our screwed up system!
I'll be fine! I've been unemployed for only 3 months in 2014 (other 3 months that are affecting my unemployment were in 2013 - I worked 6 months in between because I do work hard and don't try to take advantage of the system. I took the first job offer I got because I wasn't trying to take advantage and it ended up being a terrible company. I'd probably have been better off continuing to collect the Unemployment then and waiting for a better job offer but hind-site is 20/20). 6 months of employment issues in 20yrs isn't going to ruin my entire career path. It's a misstep not end of the world. I have interviews lined up for the week coming and will keep submitting applications and ultimately get a job in the near future. Obviously some people will sit around bored, combing the internet for posts to negatively comment on because they have nothing better to do with their lives. Sounds like the best life ever! I want to be just like you one day!
I do hope you're fine, but people who are fine don't post frantic posts like this on City Data. You got defensive because Marilyn criticized your attitude.
She is right, the HRA worker will not make the distinction between how many years you worked and didn't work. No one is psychic, not me, not Marilyn not anyone else. So if you can get another good job, more power to you.
But getting another good job is something in your future. The present reality is you are broke with no money, and you are going to have to deal with that UNTIL things change. I have no doubt you'll eventually get a good enough job, but what if that takes another 6 months? In the meantime in order to feed yourself and your child you will have to go to HRA and get government benefits. If you refuse government benefits and your child goes hungry, ACS will intervene and take away your child.
But back to your feud with Marilyn, getting angry at her will not change your situation.
MY POINT TO ALL OF THIS invasive conversation is that I would have expected
NYS and the gov't that took SO MUCH MONEY out of my paychecks for so long to
offer more TEMPORARY support to people like myself who have contributed for so
long and will be contributing again soon!
My question: WHY would you have expected this? What in your past has given even the vaguest CLUE to these extra benefits?
Did not Congress' ending of even the meager unemployment extensions in December indicate the actual state off affairs?
Did anything give you the idea that we were living in something other than a capitalist state whose social safety net has been shredded more and more since 1980 'til there is nothing left in 2014?
Or did you think that the social safety net was for those OTHER people, the ones who couldn't pull 6 figures and so their welfare meant nothing to you.
Did you ever think of there was a meaningful choice between sending your kid to private school and putting that money into a savings account? We all know what public school costs and we also know that it should not be realistically considered by someone who is 26 weeks away from bankruptcy.
Have you ever heard the phrase: "There but for the grace of God, go I."
What are my alternatives??? I literally paid $55K in Fed & NY State taxes in 2012, my last full year of work so imagine what I've contributed over the past 20 years as I've climbed the corporate ladder! There are so many lazy people who refuse to work getting their bills paid and they don't even try to contribute to society but a single mother who has worked hard and paid taxes for 20 years gets screwed over? What alternative resources do I have now that I'm losing my unemployment benefits and am 100% totally out of savings and in severe debt? Please suggest anything realistic that can help to hold me over for another month or so, so that I can continue my job hunt and get back to supporting other people! THANKS!
Basically to be fair Marilyn and the others gave you your alternatives. Child support from the dad. Going to HRA (who will want to know who the dad is for these purposes). Going to Catholic charities or some other church based group. You may also have to use soup kitchens. These are the realistic alternatives for someone in your current predicament.
You're going hysterical because people here referred to you as poor and jobless, but that describes your present reality. What's so terrible about that? Deal with the reality of now, and continue your work on fixing your present.
What people are in denial about is if you don't secure a new job soon after you get laid off, it becomes harder and harder. One year without employment in many fields is utter disaster. She didn't say what she did, so we don't have the full circumstances but from the info given her it seems pretty grim.
Exactly. I wouldn't have went in on her if she didn't keep harping about how "better" she is than the people currently collecting benefits. She doesn't know their situation anymore than they know her's.
She keeps saying how the government and state should have a "special" type of WELFARE for people who've worked for years compared to those who haven't. While she and others like her were busy co-signing the rich's war on the poor, welfare became what it is TODAY. All it does is plunge people further and further into poverty, because there are so many restrictions on what you can and cannot do.
For example, NYC HRA does NOT want to give anyone CASH benefits, but legally they can't tell anyone no. So what do they do? They create the stupidest and most assinine obstacles, so that it takes you forever to try to get it. One misstep and you get nothing. This may change under DiBlasio though. The only people who seem to not have a problem receiving cash are those in the shelter system.
The OP is giving you the biography of her life since birth, but bottomline is that even if she was the CEO of Microsoft, if she's at the welfare office and food pantries asking for help, she's no better than those people she continues to despise. She is right now on THEIR level.
It simply "sickens" me that MY "tax dollars" will be helping to take care of her with the messed up attitude she has towards people like HERSELF.
And I'm with Kefir on how do you make six figures for 10 years and still RENT?
My question: WHY would you have expected this? What in your past has given even the vaguest CLUE to these extra benefits?
Did not Congress' ending of even the meager unemployment extensions in December indicate the actual state off affairs?
Did anything give you the idea that we were living in something other than a capitalist state whose social safety net has been shredded more and more since 1980 'til there is nothing left in 2014?
Or did you think that the social safety net was for those OTHER people, the ones who couldn't pull 6 figures and so their welfare meant nothing to you.
Did you ever think of there was a meaningful choice between sending your kid to private school and putting that money into a savings account? We all know what public school costs and we also know that it should not be realistically considered by someone who is 26 weeks away from bankruptcy.
Even though I shouldn't do this, but it might help someone else who may stumble upon this thread who may not know about it.
OP, if you file bankruptcy and are living in either a rent control or rent stabilized apartment, the bankruptcy trustee will consider your apartment lease an "asset" and will call your landlord to see if he'll want to re-purchase your lease from the bankruptcy court by paying your credit debts. If the landlord agrees, he will legally be allowed to throw you and your child out of your apartment, so that he can get a higher paying tenant. The trustee will NOT tell you this. He or she will go behind your back, sell your lease back to your landlord, then forget you ever existed, while your things are on the street and you're living in a shelter with your kid.
This is NOT something I'm making up. I know of an older retired woman collecting social security who was going to file bankruptcy early this year, but a law firm that was recommended to her by an organization that helps the poor and middle class with debt management told her that if she decides to file her rent stabilized lease will be considered an ASSET. This is only a NYC phenomenon.
She didn't believe him and asked me to do some internet research for her and found this:
I've worked and paid NYS taxes for over 20 years now (paid taxes on 6 figure salary consistently for almost 10 years, through 2013!) and NYS is now about to screw me because of some recent tough luck. I was laid off last August 2013, for the first time ever, after a corporate restructuring and was out of work for about 3 months before starting a terrible job, that I took just to receive a steady paycheck. That job didn't work out (I guess that's what happens when you take the 1st offer you receive after a layoff) and I was laid off again the end of April 2014, as I wasn't "a good fit" for the crappy company. I am now about to reach my 26th week of unemployment benefits in a 12 month period and have exhausted all of my savings, and literally won't be able to support myself and my daughter (I don't get any child support) without unemployment benefits or assistance. I don't know what to do! I'm busting my butt trying to find another job, spending 12+ hours/day submitting job applications and taking interview calls and meetings, but I have yet to find another position. The job market is still rough and I'm at a place in my career where I'm either over qualified or under qualified. Companies can get a younger 20-something version of me to do the same job for less money. I'm willing to take a slight pay cut, but also can't take too much of a pay cut as I have a child to support, high rent, bills, credit card debt, etc etc etc. I will literally lose everything I've worked so hard for all these years if I have to move out of state to live in my parents basement in the middle of nowhere! (I come from a very hardworking middle-class family, where my parents both work very hard in healthcare jobs and can just keep afloat themselves, therefore don't have extra money to support me during this tough time but I can always stay with them, although they are out of NY State and hours away from where I need to be interviewing.)
What are my alternatives??? I literally paid $55K in Fed & NY State taxes in 2012, my last full year of work so imagine what I've contributed over the past 20 years as I've climbed the corporate ladder! There are so many lazy people who refuse to work getting their bills paid and they don't even try to contribute to society but a single mother who has worked hard and paid taxes for 20 years gets screwed over? What alternative resources do I have now that I'm losing my unemployment benefits and am 100% totally out of savings and in severe debt? Please suggest anything realistic that can help to hold me over for another month or so, so that I can continue my job hunt and get back to supporting other people! THANKS!
Scaredsinglemom, as a person who recently left NYC social services profession, I do have empathy for your situation. Before my foray in to SW, I used to feel similar and would ask rhetorically why is it so hard for people who work hard everyday to get help from the gov't when they need it but people who don't work can get over the system can easily get what they need from the gov't? That is a question that would take too much time for me to explain well but suffice to say it's because the system doesn't make sense, is set up to reward bad choices, hurts more people in the long run than in helps, and is in severe need of overhaul. However, none of that changes the situation you find yourself in.
Consequently, I have to agree with Marilyn. It's pointless to make distinctions between yourself and others who are in need of gov't assistance. In fact, the last thing you want to do when interacting with any of the gov't staff who work in the Workforce/welfare/food-stamp/ or charity organizations is to come across prideful, arrogant, or disdainful of poor people. Many of the staff came from that very rank before acquiring their present job and their salary is still in the "low-pay" range for NYC; they're only one step above the people they're helping.
Although there are wonderful but rare exceptions to the rule, they are known for being unpleasant to deal with in general and since they work for a non-profit entity, there is little to no incentive for them to work efficiently, professionally, please the customer or exhibit any people skills whatsoever. They will make Marilyn220 look like lil' Susie-homemaker-county-fair-blue-ribbon-winner-baker-of-brownies, breads, and all things nice! Remember these staff people have the ability to approve or deny assistance being given to you on every level, or severely DELAY the processing of your paperwork. Stay humble and don't offer any information about yourself and your circumstances beyond what they ask. God bless.
As far as people (I'll bet 9 times out of 10, it's men) asking about her receiving child support, how naïve of you. If only it was that simple. Do you not know any single mothers at all? Are you all from families composed of two-parents who were married to each other before conceiving children and have never divorced? You have followed in your parents "never-divorced, never had children outside of wedlock" footsteps? Although I know it's possible, as I've met quite a few when traveling in other parts of the country, I find it hard to believe that people in NYC mostly come from this background.
First of all, it's rare for many fathers, regardless of race or economic background, once he moves outside the home to consistently and reliably pay the maximum child support to the mother for support of his children until the child reaches adulthood. For some reason, these fathers tend to think that his ex-wife/the children's mother is using the money "on herself for frivolous things". Consequently the fathers use this as an excuse to either withhold from paying CS altogether or find a way to make their legal income so low in court that they're ordered to pay very little. This then puts the lion share of financial responsibility for caring for the child(ren) on the mother regardless of her income or lack thereof. I could be wrong but I'm willing to guess that if the father had been doing his part financially for his child, the mother would be in a better financial shape today. Unless, in this case he has been doing his part but she has been blowing it/making bad decisions/financially irresponsible (living above her current means) with the money. I hope that is not it.
Even though I shouldn't do this, but it might help someone else who may stumble upon this thread who may not know about it.
OP, if you file bankruptcy and are living in either a rent control or rent stabilized apartment, the bankruptcy trustee will consider your apartment lease an "asset" and will call your landlord to see if he'll want to re-purchase your lease from the bankruptcy court by paying your credit debts. If the landlord agrees, he will legally be allowed to throw you and your child out of your apartment, so that he can get a higher paying tenant. The trustee will NOT tell you this. He or she will go behind your back, sell your lease back to your landlord, then forget you ever existed, while your things are on the street and you're living in a shelter with your kid.
This is NOT something I'm making up. I know of an older retired woman collecting social security who was going to file bankruptcy early this year, but a law firm that was recommended to her by an organization that helps the poor and middle class with debt management told her that if she decides to file her rent stabilized lease will be considered an ASSET. This is only a NYC phenomenon.
She didn't believe him and asked me to do some internet research for her and found this:
There's also another one set up by Governor Cuomo's office in Manhattan, but I don't know what it's called.
Not quite right, one of the pitfalls of internet "research" and nothing behind.
Any case. What I recall: In the Santiago lease case, the judge kind of hedged on the decision and in the end, said she would cede her succession rights. She could stay while she lived but not pass it on. This was, the argument went, justified given the fact that her landlord would in effect "pay" her arrears. In return, she got the apartment; in return to him, he eventually took it back. I know of one other case like this, a neighbor of my family since childhood. She accepted because the arrears were considerable and she could not pay them. It was the best deal for her at the time. I would bet she will go back and challenge it all given that she now has considerable resources. These kinds of challenges will also impact what happens with this for future cases.
But I do not think the jury, no pun intended, is in on what this will mean for the bigger questions. I do not know the ideas of the moment, I am sure there are many. And some people do feel that this was a kind of milestone. I don't think it necessarily will be. I think it will hit a wall and the landlords will find something else.
Another random comment - it has been proposed that people will get buy-outs, and these can be considerable. Some of the tenants in two buildings I know here are basically going to court in answer to eviction proceedings but they stopped paying as a strategy to obtain buy-outs.
I am puzzled as to how all of this is relevant to this thread. Other than an odd kind of trying to prove something. Who cares ? Comment on what you know, where you live.
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I rarely agree with Marilyn220 but....
