

Anya Groner: The Heart You Save Won’t Be Your Own - Mz
http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/anya-groner-the-heart-you-save-wont-be-your-own/

======
incision
_> 'During our Secret Santa drive, volunteers sometimes refused to drop gifts
at houses with TVs inside.'_

This brought back memories.

Part of my first 'job' (minimum wage program for at-risk youth) was pickup /
delivery and otherwise making use of donations to various county programs.

People were incredibly indignant about who might receive some benefit from
stuff that was often just a step above garbage. It wasn't even a matter of TV,
just seeing people living in something above total squalor (battered women
sleeping on 'beds' made out of doors and 2x4s in a converted toolshed - how
luxurious) pissed people off.

 _> 'Gray computer monitors lined one wall.'_

Memories here too.

For every 20 machines to come through the door we could piece together one
capable of running the GED training app at the heart of our computer lab.

 _> 'When I decided to quit, friends told me that the end of idealism is the
beginning of awareness, that awareness is power, even when it shuts you
down.'_

I think so.

Armchair idealists, who lack the conviction of the active or the awareness of
the defeated can be quite a pain as they deal exclusively in 'should'. Should
doesn't feed anyone, but does work to disempower those who do.

~~~
jorleif
> People were incredibly indignant about who might receive some benefit from
> stuff that was often just a step above garbage.

This is a quite fascinating phenomenon psychologically that one has to face
when meeting low income people: They don't necessarily want most the things
you think they should want most. I remember being shocked by seeing "poor
people" have IPods and IPhones or similar "luxurious" electronics while
complaining that they don't have money for rent. One part of it is that
electronics are actually very cheap compared to living expenses. The other
part is that it does not matter what your income level is, there is still a
desire for self-actualization. This last point is well argued in this
following quote:

 _When you actually meet people living in tough conditions, you realize that
they don’t exactly make up dreams for their lives in some UN-approved
sequence; water first, food next, healthcare third, money fourth, philosophy
when I am rich, alcohol and marijuana never. ... Humans are capable of
nurturing rockstar dreams even while they are schlepping their twenty-miles-a-
day to fetch water. There is a reason there is music and art in all societies,
not just the privileged ones._ ([http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-
quality-of-life/](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/07/31/the-quality-of-life/))

While I don't know exactly how, I think the insight that the receivers of
social security are not primarily motivated to climb the Maslow hierarchy one
level at the time, but rather shopping all levels at the same time, could be
useful to build better interventions.

~~~
incision
_> 'One part of it is that electronics are actually very cheap compared to
living expenses.'_

Cheap relative to living expenses and childcare in particular. Years ago, it
was cable TV to keep kids off the street while parents were at work - now it's
something with a touchscreen.

 _> 'When you actually meet people living in tough conditions...there is music
and art in all societies, not just the privileged ones.'_

Nice quote.

I think the indiscretions often come back to one thing - stress and seeking to
relieve it.

Looking back my own experience, the really tough thing about being poor wasn't
lacking any specific thing it was the crushing stress of constantly teetering
on the brink and exhausting effort to keep from toppling.

I think the discipline of a life without small indulgences makes a person
'brittle' and invites the risk of outright breaking when some inevitable
disruption is beyond your control.

Also, the stress I refer to is something I believe is frequently misunderstood
and grossly underestimated. Having ample means and choosing to live spartan or
fasting periodically is a toy version of actual hardship.

------
Jun8
OK, if you aren't depressed enough by _that_ story, read this:
[http://www.wbez.org/news/illinois-losing-more-children-
child...](http://www.wbez.org/news/illinois-losing-more-children-child-abuse-
and-neglect-any-time-last-30-years-109155). The examples can be multiplied ad
nauseam.

As a first order analysis I file these failings together with the educational
ones, e.g. see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7738513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7738513).
I was downvoted quite a bit in that thread for suggesting that some aspects of
that (and I maintain this) problem can be tackled by independent, small
entities (startups, if you will) rather than behemoth governmental
organizations that are filled with people who are either incompetent or don't
care, or if they are neither of those two quickly get depressed to minus
infinity, as is the person in this piece. People argued that, no, we have to
strike at the root cause of the problem: poverty. Noble as this goal is these
institutions keep going on, with what seems to be increasing levels of
deficiency.

And kids like Gina Presley die. Chris made it through this time due to heroic
efforts of a newbie, what do you think will happen (or most probably already
have) to him when he instead faces a seasoned SS worker who will be much less
enthusiastic?

~~~
incision
Looking at your linked thread, I don't think it's the concept itself that saw
you downvoted so much as the way you stated it.

It comes off as an oversimplified 'Everything is better with startups!'

Cut out grating phrases like 'ingenious solutions' and 'young, energetic
outsiders', articulate the idea more fully, speak with a little humility and
I'd wager those posts would have fared much better - like this one [1].

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739184](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739184)

~~~
Jun8
I wasn't complaining about lost karma (although thanks for the thoughtful
suggestions) but rather a certain way of thinking which I colloquially refer
to as 'Googlism', although it's widely known by a different name
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal)).

I'm all for putting up such a goal for motivation. But one must win small,
persistent victories along the way. As an example, Google initially won by
superior technology (PageRank, GFS, etc.), they just didn't hope to "organize
the world's information" by idealism. Similarly, what is the big game changers
we are bringing to the "war on poverty". If we cannot name any such thing its
idle talk.

I don't believe such new approaches will come from government organizations
for various obvious reasons. Note that the author of this piece was a "young,
energetic outsider".

------
pje
> "I’ve heard it argued that non-profits function as a sort of safety valve,
> releasing just enough steam so that instead of organizing for systemic
> change, people compete for assistance."

~~~
saraid216
Well, yes. Why do you think there's such insistence on using private charity
to provide relief?

------
com2kid
Well, shit, now I'm just feeling depressed.

What is the story from the social services part of this? Why are they denying
so many applications? Surely the entire organization cannot just be full of
people who have not but hate and loathing in their heart. Has working at such
an organization for so long made them callous and depressed as well?

Perhaps what should be investigated is what sort of help social workers need
to enable them to cope with their job long term?

~~~
jjoonathan
If the social workers could help everyone that came to them deserving help
they wouldn't be depressed in the first place.

Unfortunately, the elected officials in charge of changing the rules can get
more votes by talking about other wedge issues. Worse, some of them can even
get votes by peddling the myth that the poor are the ones responsible for
bleeding the working class dry. This is often accompanied by a "fix" that
costs more than it saves, makes life even harder for those at the bottom, and
sometimes even funnels money back into the party / official's pocket (e.g. the
urine test performed by a company owned by the official's wife).

It's voters that need to change, not social workers.

~~~
McDoku
Well, I think you were to take a look at the budgets... you would find that
there is enough money. At least up here in Canada.

You need to spend your budget or you get less money. And frankly, some
departments should recieve less if they come in under.

The problem is that the people who do an incompetent job and/or give out
grants via patronage. They never really operating a competive service The over
head is just disgusting.

You cannot fire the incompetent or the amoral. There is lots of fat to cut in
these organizations. I know people that start out working hard on cases but
then are nerfed to keep others from looking bad.

Hell I even offered to teach a google alert class for job seekers and the
department free of charge. Did they do it... nah duplication of effort keeps
their budget high and their employment stable.

~~~
judk
If you think of these govt agencies as employment-welfare themselves, makework
jobs with a false veneer of productivity, it begins to make sense. The
bureaucracy is the actual welfare program.

~~~
jjoonathan
I don't think that was ever the intent, although I do know a handful of
conservatives who swear up and down that it was all part of the liberal
agenda.

I always thought a much more plausible explanation was simply the
accountability gap in public policy. The voters don't care if a policy works
or not, they care if it sounds like it works according to their preconceived
notions about how society functions (e.g. charging people to ride the bus will
save money). Analyzing policy is a difficult and thankless task. It's hard to
do right and voters don't pay attention anyway.

My suggestion: give each candidate 1/2 (or 1/3 or 1/4) of a ballot page to use
as they please (with caveats on sourcing data). Let the infographic battles
begin! It's not a perfect solution, but I think that it could do a great deal
to steer the debate back in the correct direction: the post-mortem debunkings
would likely be more socially productive than any immediate effect the
graphics had on voter behavior.

------
tormeh
I've heard things of a similar spirit from over here. Considerably less
extreme, of course, but the unemployed and the very poor are a politically
vulnerable group. Not to mention the psychologically ill.

In my opinion, charity is kind of a sucker's game. It's the government's job
to redistribute money from the haves to the have-nots. Because they certainly
won't do it themselves.

~~~
judk
Sucker's game? Because someone else may be less generous?

Then join up with your fellow and rise against the greedy wealthy.

------
Liesmith
It is interesting how Social Services is vilified here, but her own
organization's failure to help everyone is obviously because they lack the
resources. This person's loathing for Social Services let her get through the
day, provided an enemy to fight, but completely prevented her from getting any
insight into the problems that they face and the reasons they are forced to
make so many denials. She offers an explanation (they like denying people
things) but even she seems aware how ludicrous that is.

Meanwhile in just a few months of dealing with the needy and not having the
ability to help them all she is ground down into bitterness and cynicism. I
think the subtext here points to much better reasons for the Social Services
people giving her a hard time. She's just some dilettante college chick doing
some good works before going off to her real career. The people who she's
railing against do this for a living, and don't run away after a year. They've
been working at this for their entire careers, and see people like her every
day.

------
auvrw
the title is a reference to a flannery o'connor story (
[http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm](http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm)
)

------
machrider
Anyone have a link to the text of the article that doesn't go all wonky
(including an undismissable "gone fishing" dialog) on my phone?

------
Mz
Excerpt:

 _“Working with Social Services is hard and the stress is tremendous,” one man
wrote. “You hate it. They make you feel like you’re nobody. Cow dung on
someone’s shoes.”

“Social Services is very disrespectful,” complained another. “They put you in
a low category, which is not fair.”

When clients lost their patience and became loud or violent they were escorted
to the sheriff’s office, conveniently located in the same building. As a
client pointed out to me one day, the proximity felt like entrapment._

~~~
pkaye
This problem exists at all levels of governmental agencies if you ever have to
interact with them. Even been to the DMV?

~~~
wwweston
The DMV can sometimes be frustrating, but it's been a long time since I've
dreaded going or encountered bureaucratic resistance out of proportion to a
problem I was bringing (sure, registering a car you bought at an estate sale
when both the previous title holders are dead can be slightly tricky. Normal
transfer of ownership or renewing your license, not so much). As far as I can
tell, with modern IT systems, most routine tasks are pretty smooth.

I'd rather go to the DMV any day of the week than talk to my completely
private health insurer, that's for sure .

