Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 19, 1994 TAG: 9412190098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
in this 1990's recycled inferior trap.
Sure, have another baby, one or two more.
Before I's know it I's got a mess of mouths to feed.
Surely I's worth 50 cents more.
Oh Ms. Ann I's doing fine.
Got my once-a-month check and food stamps too.
Ever thang just fine.
Cept that 50 cents ain't enough to pay
Mr. Meet-the-Bill man
you know.
\ Writing is release for Linda Dennison.
Writing soothes her, helps her see past the food stamps and subsidized housing and all else that accompanies welfare.
Writing will be her ticket out.
\ Linda was nearly two years into a second marriage, to a man who moved her and her son, then 9, from their home in Baltimore to Roanoke.
Her husband worked as a carpenter. She had her own business, a consignment shop.
They lived "probably like a lot of people, trying to make ends meet," she said.
Then her husband walked out, leaving Linda with a mound of bills. Her business folded and, with it, her income.
She pawned her wedding ring and sold treasured antiques, items that had long been in her family. She worked a hodgepodge of jobs - mostly minimum-wage, some slightly above.
She jumped on and off public assistance. The hundred dollars-plus in food stamps each month kept the family of two from going hungry between jobs. Her son received Medicaid.
She was not eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Her monthly child support payment put her out of the eligibility range - but by less than $40.
But Linda, 39, got tired of using the system to plug the holes in her life. She wanted a lasting solution.
A year ago, Linda - who has an associate degree in fashion design - enrolled in Hollins College's Horizon program, an undergraduate program for women over 25 who have been away from formal education for four years or more. Now an art history major with an English minor, her tuition and books are covered by a combination of grant money and scholarships.
But full-time college also meant full-time reliance on the welfare system. She receives $195 a month in food stamps, supplementing the $320 she gets in child support.
She lives in a subsidized apartment in Southwest Roanoke, one-quarter of a two-story duplex that was converted into four units. Her portion of the $335-a-month rent is $67.
Linda pays a friend to watch her son after school. A bus drops him off at home. A half-hour later, the friend picks him up and keeps him for the evening while Linda studies. Most evenings, she's on the Hollins campus, sometimes until midnight.
It is a sacrifice, but "it's the only way I'm going to get out," Linda says. "If I didn't have the help that I have now, I wouldn't be able to go back to school.
"People just don't understand what it's like to be caught in the system," she says. "People don't know what it's like to experience. It gets to the point where you have to do something to survive.
"For me, it's going to school. I have to better myself."
\ So I's guess I's lay my tired, broken body down
and has me another mouth to feed
in nine months
Then I's get me 50 cents more
CEPT, all my dreams and hopes of a better life
all gone up in smoke.
Linda plops down on the sofa in her cramped living room. A large book is spread open on her lap.
"My Ummie Store," the book is titled. Linda is its author and illustrator.
"Ummie" is mother in Arabic, she says.
"We don't have enough books that talk about single parenthood and that's basically what this book is about," Linda says. "It puts it in a positive light through a child's eye. It's based on my own experiences."
Her purpose is to enforce single parenthood, to embrace and support single parents, she says.
Welfare "certainly doesn't do that," she said. "There is no incentive to go out and try to improve your situation."
Linda is looking for a book publisher. One already has turned the book down. She is preparing to send it to another, intent on turning her talents into profit.
"I don't really know what drives me," she says. "No, I do - my son.
"But it's a real test to be like this, dependent on the system to help you. This is actually poverty. There are days when I don't have any money so I don't go anywhere."
Linda sees a lot of women going nowhere, afraid to step out of the system.
"They need self-esteem so they can feel good enough about themselves to go on," she says. "But instead of sitting back and blasting and name-calling, women need to work with one another instead of judging."
There are days when Linda sinks so low she cannot lift her head from her bed pillow, days when one more "Why don't you get a job?" sends her close to the breaking point.
"There are days when I want to give up," she says. "But I have to keep going. I've been through so much.
"Maybe one day I'll be able to sit back and laugh at this."
\ Linda has no phone. She communicates with a reporter in person or by mail.
In a letter written two months ago, just as a reporter and photographer had descended on her life, she wrote that her son didn't want to be included in the story.
"He doesn't handle this well," she wrote. "He doesn't want anyone to know that this is how we live. I have to respect him for that. He's a shy kid.
"Go on with your story."
On well, I's guess nothang's change.
I's just like my moma was, welfarely employed
if you know what I mean.
Lest I's know I's got ... I's got,
NO, I's don't know! What dos I's got?*
*"Welfared Formed," by Linda Dennison
by CNB