I’m trying to brainstorm my way out of a pinch that too many of us are caught in, in this time of conservative-wrought hardship. I’m hoping DKos readers with higher-performing brains than mine can help me with this. I’ve got one offbeat possibility in mind, since my hunch is that the solution to my particular pinch will have to be as offbeat as I am.
I’d like to start with an idea I’ve come up with, and I'll get into my circumstances and challenges later.
I’d like to be able to help the causes I do support, but I can’t afford to do this with donations or with volunteer work. It occurs to me that a fellow traveler better situated than myself might be willing to partner with me. I know that well-off Lefties can give to their causes just by writing a check. But they can add a dimension to their giving by paying a struggling liberal an hourly wage to work as a volunteer for a deserving non-profit. That’s my offbeat idea: To partner with--and grow a relationship with--a fellow Leftie who is doing well, and to bring in badly needed extra income by volunteering for a worthy cause. I would be paid not by the badly strained non-profit, but by a friend who can afford to pay me. A friend doing that would be giving to a non-profit in dire need of the help, and also helping an underemployed Leftie in dire need of income.
I believe this has potential beyond the good that comes from helping one soul in need. I would never say this anywhere except on DKos, but paying higher taxes isn’t the only option at hand for helping the needy. People who say that the IRS gives options for paying higher taxes voluntarily have a point. No one forces well-off liberals to keep the income they get to keep through lower tax rates. But we limit our power to help by turning solely to taxes to help.
Penn Jillette spoke to this recently. “The government can’t do everything,” he said. But he didn’t launch into the conservative party mantra about the needy having to pull themselves up by their boot straps. Instead, he issued a plea I wish I heard more often: If you know of someone in need, reach out. He wasn’t urging you to commiserate, murmur sympathetic words, and then look on while your companion ends up on the streets. He meant to reach into your wallet.
At the risk of showing some hubris, I think this could spark a movement that liberals can be proud of, and that could rob mean-spirited conservatism of fire power. Before I go on, I have to say that I want to avoid homelessness. This isn’t completely about altruism for me, though that’s a lot of it. I know first-hand how it feels to live in fear; if I can, I want to do what I can—admittedly a small part--to spare others the same fear.
Back to starting a movement, I’d love to see something like this catch on, whether or not I’m a part of it. I’d love to see liberals show the Right enlightened compassion in action. The Right would be showing its mean-spirited ideology even more blatantly than it does now if it were to denounce a movement like this: well-off liberals offering resources and money, one-on-one, to help those suffering hardship. It could help to repair the damage done to the American character by decades of conservative domination. It could help us to reset our gyrating moral compass.
I’m a 60 year-old woman from a difficult family with a B.A. in English. I can’t turn to family for support. My parents didn’t have the resources to help me with college tuition or to support me after high school, so I earned my degree while attending college part-time and working full time.
In 2001, as a result of a lot of bad medicine, I began to suffer with untreated, disabling pain that lasted until 2007. I never collected any disability benefits, I had trouble keeping gainful work, and I spent a lot of money on any treatment I thought would ease the pain. When I finally found pain relief, the economy was beginning to tank. The years of pain left me with a six-year stretch of little employment except for pro bono copyediting. I worked pro bono because since I didn’t know from one hour to the next how much pain I’d be having, there was no point in taking paid work. Except for house cleaning work and pet- and house-sitting—for as many hours as my body would bear—I had no work. During much of this time I did not have health insurance.
When the pain set in, I was living in the home of a friend and her husband (I still live there). I occupy a small wing of their large house, informally in exchange for tending to family matters and the property while the family stays at their property in Europe. My friend died in 2005. In 2007 I began going through abuse from her family members occupying the house where I live. I was trapped and unable to move out, and I still am. That abuse ended in 2009 only because I confronted the family about it, and if different family members had had their way, they would have put me out onto the street in retaliation for my speaking up.
From 2009 until recently, things went okay with my friend’s widower. About a month ago his behavior started to become a serious problem again. He’s capable of doing more damage to my life, as is his family, if I can’t move out.
Since 2007, when I got the pain under control, I’ve been taking any copyediting work I can. I still do some pro bono work for the non-profit publication. During my time there I have always insisted on having a yearly performance evaluation, and they’ve always been excellent. I’ve asked management to try to find funding for part-time work for me, but they will not do that. They do pay me for occasional, small projects, by the project. Aside from this and a few hours a month of copyediting for a neighborhood newspaper, I have no copyediting work.
In late 2007 I began to work as a standardized patient (SP) for one of the five medical schools in my city. This has gone very well, though it is part-time work, and I’ve gone on to be hired by two other local medical schools. I’ve applied at two other medical schools, and I’m waiting to have interviews with them. If I can string together enough part-time SP work with enough medical schools, I can afford to move out of my current home. I earn a dignified, living hourly rate with SP work, I get excellent feedback for the work, and I love the work. It’s rewarding to help prepare students become the best doctors they can become.
When I’m not working as an SP, I’m usually in my alma mater’s digital lab trying to get myself current on programs that will help me to get copyediting or proofreading work (Photoshop for now, with plans to move on to InDesign and HTML). I’m still active at my alma mater because it keeps me visible and helps with networking.
In early 2009 I was diagnosed with Asperger’s. The day of my diagnosis is a second birthday to me. Finally, I have an answer to why I struggled all my life in work and in relationships. I belong to the local chapter of GRASP (Global and Regional Asperger’s Support Program), and I work at educating myself, coaching myself, and trying to repair the psychic damage done during my un-diagnosed childhood and adolescence.
I am collecting food stamps, but I’ll probably lose that benefit in May. I’ve applied, but I don’t qualify for housing or medical help.
I live just outside of Philadelphia, and I don’t have a car. I’d like to be able to move into Philly because it would lower my transportation costs.
I’ll reply with details to any serious inquiries, and also offer personal references. And I’d be happy if this DKos diary starts a discussion about how to best ease the undeserved suffering we’re witnessing, and experiencing.