Mama wants to help: food banks, homeless shelters, and mental health resources
A few months ago, I had lunch with a good friend. We talked about love, friendships, and of course, the “Worst recession since the Great Depression”. There are tons of interesting things going on in both of our lives, but rather than talk about the good, juicy bits, we kept talking about the economy.
We talked about the cost of food, and wondered how are people getting by. I had just read an interesting newspaper article about food banks the how access of free food recipients have changed. Before the recession started, food banks mainly served homeless people. But now, people who once had modest paying jobs with yearly bonuses were appearing at Food Banks and Homeless shelters.
We had an interesting, and heated conversation. Some of the topics we discussed:
- Whether or not the U.S. government is responsible for feeding people who cannot afford it, and at what cost to the rest of the population?
- What would we do if we were unable to feed our families?
- What could we do to help?
After talking about what we could to do help, I decided to create a section on MamasHealth that provides help for individuals seeking food, shelter, mental services, and health services.
I am surprised by how many people use it as a resource. But I am determined to keep adding Food, Medical, and Housing sources as fast as my fingers can type.
Need help? Know someone who needs help? Here’s my list of resources.
- Mama
I get very frustrated with the government and how little help we get as a struggling family. I have to jump through hoops to get medical insurance for my kids and me, they won’t give their Dad insurance because he makes too much money they say. Yet every month we have to scratch by, some bills don’t get paid on time and we end up getting important utilities shut off and I’m not talking about the cable, internet or the phone. They also make me jump through hoops for $40.00 a month in food stamps which for a family of 4 is gone in a couple of days, that’s why some bills don’t get paid because we’re feeding our kids and it seems like they don’t even care. The electric company don’t care that my kids need to have nebulizer treatment ever 4 to 6 hours.
We work very hard for what little we have and for me it’s very hard since I have Fibromyalgia, Polycystic Kidneys and Ovaries and I’m in a lot of pain some days. I also can’t work a full time job since my daughter is ADHD/ODD and if she’s having a melt down I have to be able to get her.
The food pantry in our area is open only on Saturdays and I have to work on Saturday since it’s one of the days that I don’t have to worry about my daughter since she’s home with her Dad. When I go to the other food pantry they give me a hard time and then I can’t come back for another year.
I just get so frustrated with what we can get, health insurance that hardly covers anything and next to nothing in food especially when there are people out there that don’t work and they won’t and they get their rent paid, medical insurance and a lot in food stamps.