One Account of What It's like to Apply for Food Stamps

The Ramsey County Government Center provides services to most, if not all, of the kids at the school where I work. It provides to the homeless and the homemore. It provides to the single mom and the happy family and the neighborhood grandparents. And me.

There are two Ramsey County Government Center locations. Of course I park at the wrong one first. Eight quarters and a nice conversation with a custodian later, I am on my way to spending eight more quarters. I figure, however, that what I will eventually receive in food stamps should outweigh whatever I put in my parking meter. Eventually.

The entrance to the Ramsey County Government Center West is scattered with smokers and pregnant women. This can be read as both "people who smoke and women who are pregnant" and "pregnant women smoking."

The room where I fill out my application isn't as crowded as I thought it would be. Crowded with people, that is; the number of government service applications multiplied by all the different languages they're in has to be somewhere between 15 and 25. It's overwhelming. I don't know where to begin. I think I might leave. As I'm deciding whether to bail or not, a woman behind me believes me to be waiting in line and soon I am.

The social worker is going to think I'm so stupid for not only failing to fill out a single application, but for not even being able to find it as well. When I ask him about food stamps, my stupidity doesn't show in his face. Actually, you can't even find the food stamps application out among the others; you need to get it directly from a social worker. Sweet. Not stupid.

A nine-page novella is placed in my hands. "Every page?" I ask.
"If you don't have kids, you don't have to fill out pages three, four and five."
So only six pages to fill out!
They take me a half hour:
I don't know how much I pay for utilities yet, I just moved here! Should I put down my race? Whether or not I have any savings? If they're marked as "optional" questions, why do they exist on this application at all? Will the answers count for anything? Will they count for me? Or against me.

The last two questions plague me throughout this process because
I have a college degree
I'm listening to an iPod that I own
My shoes look new (but they aren't)
I showered today
I'm wearing nice jewelry.

These are all things I notice the people around me don't (or more than likely don't) have. Even though I didn't purchase any of the tangible objects, I feel like I shouldn't deserve to receive food stamps. Later, when I tell this to my case worker, he laughs and says, "Well, aren't food stamps going to make your life easier for awhile?" When I answer yes because I'm living on a government stipend that is determined by the cost of living in my impoverished neighborhood and it sucks, he smiles at me and says, "Well, we all need a little help sometimes. That's the point."

Now I have filled out my application. I get back to wait in the same line. The social worker looks at my application, then returns it to me along with some more papers and a smile. I go wait in another line, where I put my name and application on a waiting list, and then I sit and wait.

When my name is called, the social worker asks me a few personal questions. She gives me a manila envelope filled with information. She sends me to the station in the corner, where I stand in line in order to get my EBT card all set up.

Oh, didn't you know that food stamps don't come in stamp-form anymore? I had only learned this a few weeks prior at my Pre-Service Orientation before becoming an Americorps VISTA.

Instead of physical stamps, a person receives what appears to be a credit card. You sign your name in pen on the back and have a pin number. Whenever you swipe the card, you type in your pin number and it shows you your remaining balance. Slick.

Then, with my card and manila envelope in hand, I put my name on the interview list. Anyone who applies for anything has to meet (or do a phone interview) with a case worker.

I sit and wait again.

I have been following the actions of a dad with three rambunctious little girls. They monopolized the chairs under the windowsill, and have now taken over the windowsill itself.
They yell a lot. Dad has so far tried snacks, pleading and games on his cell phone in order to quell their screaming. It isn't even that they girls are fighting. They're just really loud at playing.
Because it's a Friday afternoon, I assume dad has no work. His smile is happy for his daughters, but his eyes and shoulders are sad. They match the rest of the crew in this joint.

No one notices the hollering little girls, yet everyone notices them.

A woman arrives, and it seems as though I am the only person who doesn't recognize her. She mentions several times that she is homeless. It's almost as if she wears her current state of living proudly on her sleeve. Her friends surround her, and the latest gossip is passed around the circle. Gut-busting laughs and knee-slapping stories are shared.
I feel out of place more-so now than before. In a place as stressful, awkward and humiliating as this, I find myself wanting to be a part of this group. To have friends here isn't a number on your Facebook page. It's survival.

All of this people watching makes the time go faster. So fast that I start getting nervous about my parking meter. My car has already been towed once this summer and I don't like asking my dad for money. Just as I've decided to run outside and down the block to re-plug my meter, a kid about my age comes and sits near me. He's pissed:

"The cop was writing me a ticket right as I walked up to him! He didn't even look at me when I told him I had my quarters."
Expletive.
The popular woman who everyone knows tells him the social worker called his name while he was outside. Now he'll have to put his name on the list again.
Expletive!!!!

This bigger reaction to missing his name being called makes me decide to just risk a ticket. If they call my name, I don't want to give up my spot. It's almost two o'clock and although I have been here for just three hours, I might as well exaggerate and say it's been 16.

When Darryl finally calls my name, the first question he asks is if I drove here. I say yes, and he asks me about my meter status. Soon we are on the stairs and out the back door, where I put five more quarters towards the city of St. Paul's Retirement Fund. No ticket! I love Darryl.

The interview certainly doesn't last for five quarters, but it's better to be safe than have a $42 ticket on my windshield. Darryl asks me about my job and my income, my living situation and how much I pay for rent. By the end of the interview, Darryl has me feeling very reassured: all I need to do is mail him a copy of my lease and a letter from my employer stating where I work and how much I make.

Then it's over. As I leave the Ramsey County Government Center, I see more and more people who have started this same process. What services will they (or won't they) receive? Will they get $80 a month in food stamps like me? Or will their kids just have to get daily nutrition from the free breakfast offered at school?

No one makes eye contact with me as I leave the building.

I wonder if that's because they know that I know that once my service as a VISTA is over, the chances of me ever needing to return to that building are slim to none.

I wonder if this whole experience would have been the same if those chances had been different.