The Seattle Times had a picture of Gerry Ketchum, a Work First program supervision looking at the empty cubicles in his Belltown offices. He looks so lonesome. Maybe they can tape in some music like, “Are you lonesome tonight or something”. He says its like a ghost town and he just stops and wonders where all these people went. Well for sure they went on unemployment for the next year or so and they are not hurting. Obviously the world is still turning and the sun still keeps coming up so we will survive . He should realize DSHS has gotten so big that no one is accountable to anyone and it’s time to revamp the whole DSHS Agency.
I do not have a dog in this fight. I have never applied for welfare or food stamps. But when you look at people who you know that are on welfare and in subsidized housing it hurts. They are doing way better than I am in my old house and I worked all my life. That’s upside down to my way of thinking. You look at the gangs of young people hanging out everyplace and they certainly are not looking for a job. Who would hire them with their hat on sideways, pants on the floor, and ring in their nose. I live right beside a “welfare house” apartment. The residents are drunks and druggies and fairly young. They should not get a “stay at home check” so they can party 24/7. It’s a terrible dead end life but Seattle DSHS is making it possible. If these people had to get up every morning and go to a cafeteria type place for their breakfast, they would be way better off. Serve them up a good one. Make them help with clean up. Then they can go where ever they want until lunch and can come back and eat again. Have a dormitory type place where they can go sleep. The only requirement is they must be drug and alcohol free. You don’t help these addicts by giving them money. You do not feed their children. You simply are enablers.
The State has laid off 13% of their workers and said that was 4,700 job cuts. If that is the case then they had 36,153 workers. When you consider that only a few of these workers actually do something like repair offices or haul something the big majority just sits and decided who to hand taxpayers money to. From many many stories the Seattle DSHS Agency is not following through on cases, and handing out money that can’t be accounted for, kids are being left in danger and more and more people are given checks and subsidized housing, with almost no questions asked. Look at the latest nightmare that DSHS created and now taxpayers will have to pay the damages, not the workers that caused it. (Read Here) It’s a horrible story about DSHS placing children in bad environments. Wouldn’t you think the safest and most common sense approach would be a another family member (Grandma or Aunt Mary in Florida). I know DSHS hears some terrible stories but every family has a good citizen and/or a couple happily married who would accept their own blood. Did you know DSHS gets paid per investigated complaint and/or action? Take note, DSHS is a messy Agency that needs a lot of work and as long as they are paid for complaints and doing action they will never care about the outcome. It’s will always be in the best interest to find fault and spend our money on worthless programs that do nothing to correct society problems.
