Gowans see welfare as temporary, uneasy fix

“There are ways of getting around WorkFirst.”

Rebecca Gowan has heard that more than once from people on welfare, people she has met since she and her family became homeless last winter.

She has been told there are tricks to avoid having to look for work as required by Washington state’s welfare reform plan. There are schemes to continue receiving federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families without having to attend vocational training classes.

But the very notion of sitting on welfare for the maximum five years allowed by law repulses Rebecca. “Why would I want to?” Rebecca asks. “This life sucks.”

Before, she and her husband, Dale, always had money. There was always another paycheck at the end of the week. If they got in a bind, he could work more hours. Though he might have been one or two paychecks away from the street, Dale considered himself middle-class, because he always had disposable income.

Now it is all gone. Dale has nothing left to show for more than 20 years of hanging drywall but the chronic pain of an injured back. Like so many others in this nation, his family is destitute because of a medical emergency.

“I know there is a way better life out there,” he said. “I’ve lived a way better life.”

Rebecca, 27, is halfway through an eight-week, office technology course administered for WorkFirst through the Community Colleges of Spokane Training and Educational Coordinating Center. When she completes the course, she will be able to look for a clerical job with the necessary office and computer skills.

She and Dale and their three small children receive a $740 TANF check at the beginning of every month. It is less than half of what Dale made before the back injury left him unable to work. He once made $750 a week.

Now, even with food stamps, Rebecca said, it was difficult to get through April without pawning many of their possessions.

There is enough for the payment on the 1988 Ford Bronco they bought with the help of an income tax refund back in January, but not enough to buy insurance for it. Rebecca has gotten two tickets for not having insurance and has been told she will lose her driver’s license at the end of the month.

Then there is gasoline to pay for and repairs on the Bronco.

After all the bills are paid, there is about $100 left for things such as diapers and laundry, shampoo and rolling tobacco for Dale. Rebecca is not used to this life.

“I’ve been spoiled,” she said. “My mom spoiled me, and when I got my first job as a teenager, I went to the mall and spoiled myself. Then I married Dale, and he spoiled me. And now I’m screwed.”

When their TANF check came May 1, Dale and Rebecca were able to recover their wedding rings from a pawn shop. They are grateful for donations from people who helped them get through April after reading about the family in The Spokesman-Review.

“We would have gotten through it, but it would have been hard,” Rebecca said.

Now they have a kitchen table and chairs, two worn but clean sofas and beds.

While Rebecca is in class, Dale spends his days in their apartment at the Salvation Army’s transitional housing project. He gets Anthony, 8, and Madelynn, 6, off to school and takes care of Gillian, 2. He has turned out to be a meticulous housekeeper. Photographs of the children adorn the once bare walls. He is a little sheepish, however, about the lovely living room window valance he fashioned out of bed skirts. Last week, Dale returned to the pawn shop with some DVDs. Of the $15 he received in exchange, $5 went for gasoline and $10 in quarters went into the washer and dryer.

The couple stretch the food budget by shopping at the Valley Wal-Mart Supercenter, but by the end of the month they will lack the gas to get there.

“I’m used to paying for groceries with cash,” said Dale, dealing out imaginary large bills. “And it didn’t matter that I was covered in dust from work. Before, there was respect. People see you go to work in the morning and come home dirty at night.”

Now the family has to go to Wal-Mart on the first of the month with everyone else who just got their TANF check. Throngs of people fill their shopping carts with diapers and groceries. Grinning clerks judge them by their food stamp cards. “You have to go because you’re so far out of food you can’t wait, and you’re one of them,” Dale said. “I want to shout, ‘Look, I’m hurt. It’s not because I want to live like this.’ “

He and Rebecca see their situation as temporary. She knows when she finishes class she will be able to earn no more than $8 to $9 an hour, probably less than the TANF grant and food stamps she is living on now, but at least she will have the opportunity to better her position.

Dale looks forward to a better time after back surgery and recovery. At 38, he hopes to get a job as a foreman or supervisor. He wants something less strenuous, but if that fails, he will go back to “hanging” despite the risk.

“My family deserves better,” he said.