Search -
A Day at the Fare: One Woman's Welfare Passage
A Day at the Fare One Woman's Welfare Passage Author:Pamela M. Covington IMAGINE. You?re living a good life in a grand old house with your family, spending your summer looking out from your veranda onto a picturesque park and enjoying the scent of flowers in the air?until fall arrives and you?re beholding a multi-colored canopy of foliage. But by winter you?re stealing toilet tissue from a restaurant restroom and won... more »dering what you?re going to do with your first welfare check that won?t even pay the rent for the ghetto apartment you and your children are now calling home. The reality is we?re all only living one or two misfortunes away from losing the people or things we?re depending upon, and if and when that happens, you could easily find yourself enduring A Day at the Fare. What would you be willing to do to survive its grim circumstances? This memoir shares the story of the author's plunge into and triumphant emergence from deep poverty. WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK? How much do you think you know about what life is like living on welfare--other than what you've heard? "I subscribed to all the typical negative stereotypes about welfare recipients until I found myself with no choice other than to become one," says the author. "Then I learned I couldn't have been more wrong." IF your head is full only of preconceived notions about anyone who receives government aid, this book is for you. "Why would anyone choose to be on welfare? To rely on food stamps?" Really. No one says, "When I grow up I'm going to be on welfare." Often people end up on welfare through no real fault of their own. The author recalls that when faced with adversity, "Applying for assistance was my last resort to having nothing at all." IF you've been lucky enough in life to avoid any form of economic struggle, this book is for you. How likely is it that the policymakers who decide how much assistance poor people should receive have any experience themselves struggling in poverty? Highly unlikely. This book is for them. Are you someone depending upon the temporary help government aid provides just to be able to get by, but are finding it hard to envision ever being able to move beyond your struggle? IF so, this inspirational story is especially for you.« less