Join the Rally for Life Monday, April 28, 10am, 1221 Oak St., Oakland, then stand up for justice before the Board of Supervisors

by Cullette X and Tiny, Poor News Network

I have lived in Oakland my whole life. I have lived in poverty for most of my life. I have worked since as far back as I can remember.

Nadolyn J. Hankins was in the Oakland GA office when lawyers from the Homeless Action Center came in to do legal advocacy work for recipients

As a child, my mother, an immigrant from Haiti, struggled to raise me and my sisters as a poor single mother. She worked two jobs and I had to help take care of my sisters while she was at work. One day a neighbor called Child Protective Services while she was at work and the police came and put me and my sisters in foster homes. I never saw my mother again.

I suffered severe abuse in those homes – homes I was placed in “for my best interests” – and in many ways I have never recovered. I tell you my life story because it informs who I am today: a poor woman struggling to get, keep and hold down a job. A job that pays me enough to live in the town I was born in. A town impacted by gentrification, redevelopment and the rising cost of living.

I have been working since I was 14. I started with domestic work and then graduated to fast food jobs. I trained to be a certified nurses assistant and straddled two jobs for over 14 years in this field until I got a herniated disc and was laid up for over a month.

I am now on General Assistance and am seeking work. I also do work just to get my benefits; unlike the mythology about welfare, there is NO free money. We all work for our cash aid and food stamps. As well, I look for work every day but I am older now and face a lot of covert ageism from prospective employers. They don’t think I am “fit” enough to do a job that involves caring for elders. I am not sure what I can do.

If the County of Alameda proceeds with its plan to impose six-month time limits to receiving aid, many of us will starve, resort to underground economies (crime), end up homeless and/or get very sick, and the so-called “employable,” yet obviously disabled, unemployed workers who are on GA with me will surely die.

I have struggled my whole life. I am tired, and I am not sure if I will make it through another crisis. But I really don’t want to die, which is why I am using my voice to tell the truth about this deadly proposal.

Cullette X (not her real name) is a race and poverty scholar enrolled in the Digital Resistance Media Program at POOR Magazine’s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute. Tiny is a poverty scholar in residence at POOR Magazine/ Poor News Network.

Rally for Life

Join poverty scholars, advocates, doctors and service providers from all over the Bay Area at a Rally for Life on the steps of 1221 Oak St. (at 12th street) in Oakland at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 28. The rally and press conference will precede a hearing on this proposal in front of the Social Services Committee of the Board of Supervisors on the fifth floor of the same building at 10:30. Stay and speak out against this deadly proposal; your voices will count.
 

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