Help finding Help

I barely survive on my income, yet I make too much for any type of assistance to receive help. Can anyone help me find the resources i need. I need to talk to someone. I will do all the work. I just ned to be pointed in the right direction.

[hypercat54]

Hi it would help if you told us which country you live in. There are members here from all round the world. x

[Hidden in reply to hypercat54]

Oh. Ok. Didn’t think about that. I’m in the USA.

[Hidden]

I forgot to mention I’m in the USA.

[Ironj]

Have you tried Catholic Charity they offer free counseling for low income people.

[Hidden in reply to Ironj]

I have not tried that. Is there a website or phone number? I don’t know how to ask.

[Ironj in reply to Hidden]

ccano.org is the website

[Hidden in reply to Ironj]

Thank you so very much. I will try that. Anything will help.

[Ironj in reply to Hidden]

Your welcome , I know a person that utilized there services and were very satisfied. Good luck and best wishes.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

ccano.org looks like a very good resource. Unfortunately, they are in Louisiana. I will keep trying, but wanted to post this information for anyone that may be in that area.

[Ironj in reply to Hidden]

You can type in the area you live in just type for example Orlando Florida catholic charities in a google search.

[Hidden]

Hi Itsme! I’m in the same boat as you until October when my benefits are activated. I’ve tried and tried to no avail. I call it “The limbo zone.” You make just a little too much to qualify for most programs, but still cannot afford such exorbitant health care costs. Welcome! I truly hope you can find something that helps you!

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I hope you do too. If I find a way I will share with you. I work for a company who doesn’t offer insurance so I thought I could qualify plus my income level. That’s not the case. I told the person on the phone that I knew it was just her job to tell me and answer questions and not her decision. But I also told her how basically if I decided not to work and get all benefits I would be at the same income level just government funded yet better because I’d get insurance. She agreed. Work is the only thing that keeps me going. My mind is generally off of things and I feel appreciated and worthy. I just don’t understand our insurance/help situation for people who need it. And I’m definitely not going to lie to get it like a lot of people do.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I agree with you 100% and feel the same way! I have always worked and, like you, it helps me get out of myself and into someone else (I’m a nurse). My confidence goes way up when I’m working and contributing to our finances. Lying isn’t an option for me either. I toyed with the idea of disability benefits after this most recent trip to the psych hospital, but I’m just not ready for that yet...I’m not finished and still feel like I have something to offer. And so it goes! Good luck with your search!

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I haven’t been to the hospital yet but I will if that’s what I have to do. I’ve just always been afraid they would take my child or something. She’s 17 but still it seems to be how it works sometimes. I just need a little help is all. It’s stigmatized so bad. It’s hard

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I have 3 (adults now) children and that scenario has never been a problem, thank God!!

[gogogirl in reply to Hidden]

You have values!

[Singlemom6]

I know the feeling. Its so frustrating because no one understands exactly why is the reason you are applying for benefits. When that would happen to me and I would get turned away I would get so upset knowing that people that dont work or do anything for themselves are getting the full package while i could barely feed my kids. We cant argue with the system it is what it is. We just have to patient. Goid luck .

[gogogirl]

If you are a senior citizen- could you try calling senior services?

[Hidden]

I am 37

[old-soul]

Social Services / Temporary Assistance / Food Stamps (SNAP)

Having $100 or more in food benefits (depending on how many are in the family) leaves more cash available for stuff like auto insurance, or the water bill, or the phone bill etc, so YES, food stamps if you quality!

If you qualify for food stamps you also automatically qualify for help with critical utility costs if loosing power or utilities could lead to your death - PERIOD.

If you legitimately qualify, you know what, you are POOR for heaven's sake. Don't let the "group think" idea that "anyone that gets food stamps is a scammer" B.S. stop you, even if YOU think that's true, or you'll learn that lesson AFTER you've lost your home. IF YOU LEGITIMATELY QUALIFY FOR FOOD STAMPS, YOU ARE ACTUALLY POOR. GET IT? Food stamps are the first line of social services to allow people to SURVIVE. Food. They are also the most demonized. I love to hear people that don't know I receive food stamps go on and on about what people bought at the grocery store and bought with food stamps. It doesn't matter if it's a frozen pizza, a piece of meat or a bunch of decent fresh vegetables, I have heard people talk TONS of schiznit putting anyone they can down because they are poor. It's bull.

If you are a disabled American, even if under 62 years of age, the Office for the Aging offers financial counseling for YOU too. If you are having financial trouble then yessir this is an important resource to help stop you from slipping further between the cracks before you wind up out on the streets, as is alarmingly common here in the USA these days. Families have been loosing homes and getting split up, broken down and plowed under just as they were during the Great Depression, so no, no poor OR moderate income household is immune.

You are very smart to look at what's happening with your bank accounts now rather than later, because later is WAY too late. One way or another, you need proper financial planning and/or a CPA (Certified Public Accountant), because your problem is one of finance, and unless you resolve the issue, it will get worse, not better. If you are truly poor, as in living at or way below the poverty level), you may end up with absolutely zero help.

Catholic Charities, Ministry of Concern and other privately funded organizations largely funded and staffed by folks who don't have much more money than you or I have, so I implore you to make use of any government offices that already exist, because if you are an American you have paid into that, and those offices work for us, NOT the other way around.

Do NOT let belligerent pride land you and potentially your family in the "homeless pool." That pool has been growing to include higher and higher percentages of Americans for the last decade or more as one after another bank crisis and housing crisis has been smoothe over with working-class tax dollars, and no-one looks to the corporate greed and banks taking trillions in BAILOUTS, only to give the money to themselves as record bonuses for posting record losses.

Most of those tax dollars come from the bottom 80% of earners. The "middle working class" and poor. All of the poor and most of the lower income working class families that pay MOST of the taxes collected in this country are also one paycheck away from homelessness, and are afraid to see that it is in fact true.

The government offices will always TAKE all of the money needed to support more government employees (and so much more), but NOT from the people that contribute the dollars to decide who the candidates for political offices would be. No no. They always take from the poor who have no voice, except to pick one of two political candidates who were both chosen by people with more money than God.

Why vote if you get to decide who the candidates even are? If I can choose every year who the Democratic, the Republican, or who BOTH candidates will be, and they KNOW I am the one that made it possible for them to win, I don't even need to vote, and I still control the leaders. {shrug}

So, no, refusing to apply for food stamps will NOT impact anyone's taxes. Hell, the military doesn't even know where 10% of the weapons it buys each year to add to the stockpile are. If you refuse food stamps, that's just more guns the government buys, and then can't even find.

Take the help whether you like it or not, or you too could wind up homeless for two years just as I did. If the truth scares you, good, becasue I'm telling you, the time to take action is right now, and you've done that by asking for suggestions.

As a caveat:

If you are working class AND living beyond your means, that is a very common and very real problem too, and there is only one way to stop hemorrhaging cash, which is getting a grip on "needs" that aren't anything CLOSE to actual needs.

Until one has a real handle on the reality of what is truly NEEDED, every "want" can be justified as a "need," and until that reality is accepted by the one who is spending themselves into oblivion, nothing else can be done. Hell, some people have vacation properties, 4x4 monster truck hobbies and small aircraft they "feel" they "need." Still others feel they "need" a new iPhone because the phone company SAYS they are "due for an upgrade," "need" a $100+ per month bill for television, "need" a $125 worth of new clothes every time they, "get an itch," and on and on. I am not assuming that it the case here, but if it is, please, get a grip, becasue I ain't the one to hear that mess.

Retail therapy? Hmmm . . . the truth is:

Fixing pain by buying more and more stuff (that never makes reality actually go away and is not enough as soon as it is a day old), is not recognized as a healthy form of therapy. It's essentially like a drunk hiding in the bottom of hundreds of little bottles and rationalizing that. It IS the problem, not the solution. Until that is realized, no-one can help.

If there is a gambling problem, again, no bit of advice is going to help aside from, "as long as a compulsive gambler has not gotten to the point where they are not willing to gamble and loose ANY MORE than they already have, nothing will change."

I have no idea what your annual income is, who you are or where you're at with your spending, so all I can do is throw out several things I know about those that have far more than I have to live on and squander it all, as well as those who are truly poor like myself, (who is living on less than $11,000 per year), and are financially crashing and burning or the same reasons I have encountered.

Again, given this IS the WWW (wild wild web) and I have been using IT communications for decades, please don't take offense if some of what I said does not fit you specifically. I have no idea what your whole financial situation looks like, because I don't know you personally, but I AM aware that lots of people have used the internet to cry about money and then scam trusting people out of their life savings to buy more mansions, more food, drink, cars, airplanes and yachts, so, yeah, if that DOES happen to fit, then "SHOO!" lol

[Hidden]

I’m on here and being completely honest. Don’t qualify for food stamps. I think the last time I applied I was told I make around $40 a week too much and I’ve since gotten a small raise. Although your information is helpful I have already sought those people for help. I am definitely not on here to scam or get any help other than being supported mentally and pointed in the right direction. I’m sure you meant well but now I feel as though I’m in some type of social media platform and having to defend myself. If that’s the case I just won’t be on here anymore.