They Shoot Horses, What About Discarded Social Workers?

It would be kinder to just take 'em out back and put 'em out of their misery.

I've recently heard dire stories from women I know who have given decades of dedicated service to impoverished families and individuals. Years of community service earned them a first-class ticket into poverty.

Irish, the retired racehorse seen here, at least gets a pasture and people who tend to his basic needs. But my two friends, and scads more like them, get thrown to the curb and now face poverty level employment with no insurance, or worse, unsupported unemployment. Tell your Senators to vote for an emergency extension of unemployment benefits.

"Jen" is on her knees praying that Congress tosses the few crumbs of unemployment benefits to keep her from becoming homeless. After working for a dozen years as a compassionate, capable caseworker in a government office not previously known for going the extra mile, she left to care for a family member dealing with cancer. She returned to human services, had a conflict with a co-worker and lost her job soon after. Unemployment benefits exhausted, she's burned through her meager savings and retirement to avoid the streets.

"Marisa" labors as a child care worker in a hoity-toity community, earning a paltry $21,000 a year, far from enough to barely survive in her suburban enclave outside Chicago. College-educated, people-smart and scrupulous, she took this job as a last resort, and because she loves children. Without regular donations from family and friends (non-tax-deductible), she'd be homeless.

A few issues come to mind here: Our so-called safety net is in shambles. In many cases the people providing assistance are paid near-poverty level wages without health insurance, as pathetic as the poorly paid workers in fast food and farm work. And now budget-balancing states are looking at cutting Medicaid, contrary to the Obama plan to expand it to reach some of these near-poverty-level  workers.Falling into homelessness shouldn't be the penalty for dedicated human service.

Skyrocketing housing costs make it near impossible for single people with limited incomes (many divorced/separated women) to live on their own. My experience is that many front-line nonprofit workers' skimpy compensation jeopardizes not only their own stability but the quality of services they provide.

The Human Services Workforce Initiative reports (pdf): "In some instances poor compensation contributes to excessive turnover ... an unreasonable workload and endless paperwork renders otherwise capable staff ineffective; and keeping morale up is difficult .... " Morale is worse when you get fired or downsized. And the upcoming tsunami of lay-offs in government and nonprofit human services — balancing budgets, don't 'cha know — will pour salt in the wounds.

I'm not sure if I could agree with one of economist Robert Reich's outcomes of this economic divide where he surmises, "What we get from widening inequality is not only a more fragile economy but also an angrier politics." The people I know, like Jen and Marisa, tend to totally tune out politics, moving tragically to a depressed funk.

Seems to me we could do better by those workers who face poverty's devastation by trying to ease  damage in our communities. Perhaps we could let them move into empty stalls at foreclosed horse farms and toss them a bale of hay twice a day.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan