Getting Help

I can’t find the image now, but there used to be this flier full of phone numbers that got posted and passed around. There seemed to be help for everything — places to get food, help with housing, getting health insurance, mental health services, even things like diapers and clothes.

Wow, I thought. How great that we live somewhere there’s so much help available to people who need it!

I was talking to a social worker friend in another city, and telling her how lucky I was to live here, how many resources we have. I’ll never forget her answer. She laughed bitterly, and said, “Baby, have you called those numbers?”

I wanted to prove her wrong, so I found the flier and started dialing.

Y’all.

Out of the two dozen numbers on that flier, I remember distinctly that three of them answered. More than half were out of order. Several had full mailboxes or unintelligible answering machines. I was angry before I got halfway through the list.

Imagine if I’d been hungry. Or cold. Or scared.

The next thing I learned was this:

Even when you do get through, almost nobody is set up to help you RIGHT NOW. The food pantries are only open at certain times. Rental assistance for people at risk of eviction is currently operating on a 6-week lag — and that’s AFTER you fill out the complex application for funding. SNAP (food stamps) can take anywhere from 2–4 weeks to get approval, let alone the time it takes to start getting food. Fuel assistance (money for heating bills) requires a long form on paper. Those are just specific to my local area. In some places, some parts will be easier. In other places, some of these kinds of help won’t even exist.

And housing. Those low income apartments and Section 8 and public housing complexes everyone likes to point to when we talk about homelessness? Their wait lists are so long they’ve stopped adding people to the wait lists, on the grounds that it’s inhumane to add someone to a wait list that could be 14 years long.

Fourteen years.

I’m so sorry.

Maybe you can live in your car until then?

(But if you own a car, you may not qualify for food stamps. There are limits on how much you can have in order to qualify, and cars count as assets. They’re treated like money in the bank. You get the idea.)

Our social safety net is based on waiting, testing, forms and bureaucracy. Often, people give up trying to get help, even when they qualify for it. Wouldn’t you? And how easy is it to start to believe it’s designed that way, to make it as hard and humiliating as possible, to discourage people from ever even trying?

For some of you, this is old hat. You’re nodding and rolling your eyes, unable to believe that people have to be told this. Doesn’t everyone know this?

And for some of you, confronting this is incredibly painful. SO painful, in fact, that you can’t believe it. You refuse it entry. You say that can’t possibly be true. I know someone who…

And I want to say: I’ve been there. I have been the person you call for help. It is the most brutal job I’ve ever had. My entire job was to pick up the phone and say, as nicely as I could,

“No.”

“You’ll have to wait.”

“I’m sorry.”

And it weighed on me. It weighed on me so hard and heavy that I started to get sick from it. It hurt so much to be part of this giant, broken thing that I started to get angry.

Not at the system. That would be too difficult, too impossible.

No, I got angry at the people who needed help.

I would look for any way to blame them for their circumstances. Any single thing they had done imperfectly let me release myself from blame.

Oh, they misspelled a word on the application? Must not be my fault that their heat got shut off this month. Oh, they hadn’t applied for help soon enough? Must not be my fault that they might go hungry this month.

Of course it wasn’t actually my fault. But the practice of blaming people for trying to get help imperfectly was damaging — to me, and to the people I was working for. I quit within six months.

And that’s what I see some people doing — in public conversation, at city council meetings. Oh, have they called the housing authority? No? Well, must be their fault they’re homeless. There’s help available, you know. I see all these phone numbers.

(The housing authority, by the way, is basically an unlisted number, and is notoriously difficult to get hold of. I couldn’t do it with an entire day and multiple numbers at my disposal. So imagine if I’m scared and busy and running low on battery. No chance in heck.)

I’m not blaming these people for their reactions. They, too, are recognizing the enormous pain of living in a broken world and system, and are desperate for anything to alleviate that pain.

Even blaming. I know, because I did it, too.

I don’t want to leave on that bleakest of notes, so I’ll say this much: for all that the system is broken, it’s more worth it to try than not to try for help. Because even though it’s not enough and not fast enough, it’s often the difference between making it through and not. Sometimes, it’s even the difference between survival and thriving.

But if someone’s struggling, and your impulse is to hand them a phone number, my best piece of advice for you is this: call that number yourself, first.

Here’s a script I use: “Hi, I’m calling because a friend of mine needs help. What kind of help is available for someone in their situation? What can they expect if they call this number?”

The answer will give you something real and tangible you can bring back to the person. It helps a lot more to be told, “Call this number and leave a message asking for this person about this thing,” instead of being told, “call this number” only to get discouraged when you get an answering machine. And sometimes, that little bit of encouragement and knowledge is the difference between giving up, and not.

And if you can’t get through, or don’t understand the website, or get frustrated trying to get your friend some help, any help — at least you can say, “I’m so sorry. I know it’s incredibly hard and frustrating. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can.” Because you do. And sometimes, that little bit of validation is the difference between giving up, and not.

Anyway. If you didn’t know, now you know.