Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994 TAG: 9412210049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She had three children in tow, one too young to remember the throngs of people and how the sights differed from the family's native Iran.
Smuggled out of her country to flee religious persecution and a husband she was divorcing, Parvin expected to turn hardship into a good life.
``I was so long in a very bad situation, that I was thinking `Whatever happens here will be better than what I had,''' she said.
But she landed smack in the nation's welfare system - on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, on food stamps, on Medicaid - initially in New York, eventually in Roanoke. She joined an estimated 1.5 million "resident legal aliens" who receive welfare benefits.
Though Parvin is grateful for the assistance, she abhors how welfare recipients are perceived - lazily lounging, soaking up taxpayer dollars.
Welfare "is not something anybody wants to do," she says. "They don't look at you as a human being. They don't say anything. They judge you with their eyes.
"They think this level of society doesn't have feelings and can cope with anything."
Parvin spends much of her day alone in her subsidized Southwest Roanoke apartment. While the children are in school, she stays at home - sleeping, listening to the radio, smoking the cigarettes she knows she should avoid, mulling over her situation. Tears come easily.
She wants a job, though she refuses to take just any job. She is irritated when asked if any job is better than no job.
Through Project Self-Sufficiency - a Roanoke Department of Social Services program that provides welfare recipients with education and job training - Parvin graduated this year from Virginia Western Community College with an associate's degree in computer information systems.
Parvin, 47, says she was naive to think that with the degree, a job would come easily.
Job prospects have fallen through. Convinced that her lilting Middle Eastern accent is a turnoff in the Roanoke Valley job market, she has resorted to asking friends to answer "Help Wanted" ads by phone for her. Coming face-to-face with prospective employers has confirmed her belief in the existence of job discrimination, she says.
A job paying minimum wage - $4.25 an hour - would give her less each month than she's receiving now in AFDC, food stamps and a rent subsidy, she says. Employed, her rent would triple. Employed, she would have no food stamps.
Unemployed, she gets $347 a month in AFDC benefits and $310 a month in food stamps. The family receives Medicaid benefits.
Out of the $347, Parvin pays the $68 rent, the phone bill, a student loan bill, car insurance, installment payments to a car-repair shop and a credit card bill. She has about $80 left once those bills are paid.
When asked about the credit card, Parvin explains that seven or eight months ago, she received an application in the mail. She filled it out, including that her monthly income was a $347 welfare check.
She figured the application never would be approved.
It was. The card has a $600 limit. She has reached the limit and is paying her minimum monthly installment.
At a glance, Parvin doesn't appear to want for anything. There is a microwave on a kitchen counter, food in and on top of the refrigerator, an exercise treadmill in one bedroom, a radio blaring from another.
Her daughters - 10-year-old Mojdeh and 6-year-old Sadaf Khatami - are happily watching a videotape of "The Little Mermaid" on the VCR. Her son, Khashayar Khatami, 14, breezes through the front door and back out, on his way to a friend's house.
Parvin explains that the microwave, treadmill and VCR were given to her by generous friends, some members of Roanoke's Bahai community who helped her settle in Roanoke.
The refrigerator appears full because of a recent trip to the grocery store, where she used a good portion of the $310 in food stamps she receives each month. She says she spent $230 of the monthly allotment in two weeks and has $80 to last until the next batch comes in.
Khashayar has asked his mother to drive him to the friend's house, which is a good two miles away. Parvin tells him she cannot. The family's car, purchased with money Parvin borrowed from a friend, is not running - again. Khashayar takes off on foot.
The family members brush their teeth with a paste of baking soda and salt. Parvin says she can't afford toothpaste. And toothpaste, she explains, is not eligible for purchase with food stamps.
Khashayar, a soccer player, has been squeezing his feet into last year's cleats. Parvin says she cannot afford to buy him a new pair.
A coach at Khashayar's middle school wanted him join the football team. Parvin told the coach she could not afford the uniform. The coach said she needn't worry about the cost.
``I told him `No,''' she said. "That is not a solution for my life. I want to be able to do for myself."
Yet Parvin knows she cannot - not without a job.
Parvin worries about the children. She is willing to do without for herself, but watching the children do without is painful.
The children seem to detect the differences - between their lives and the lives of their friends.
Maybe it began soon after their move to Roanoke. Their first home was in a public-housing community, where the family would sleep huddled next to the front door each night, afraid that someone might break in.
Maybe it began when the children started school. Mojdeh, a fifth-grader, is asked about making the big move from elementary to middle school next year. What school will she attend?
``I don't know. All my friends are going to North Cross,'' she answers, looking away. North Cross is a private school in Southwest Roanoke County.
Maybe it evolved as the children watched their mother's frustrations grow, to the point of cutting her hair within an inch or two of her scalp because she ``had no motivation to fix it anymore.''
Two weeks ago, the youngest, Sadaf, placed a lost tooth under her pillow, expecting the Tooth Fairy to exchange it for money.
"She is still waiting," Parvin says. The Tooth Fairy "has nothing to put there."
by CNB