Providence schoolteacher describes her dream of financial independence
By Marisa Pesce
I’m one of them.
My dream is to regain the financial independence I once
enjoyed before life and systemic obstacles got in the way. I come from a family
with a history of mental illness and domestic abuse, and I’ve suffered through
mental health challenges myself.
I’ve always worked hard. After high school, I earned a
college degree and found the calling of being a teacher. I earned and paid for
my Master’s degree while teaching full time as a high school math teacher. I
still struggled with challenges, but life was good. The system had worked. I
had a home and was financially independent.
Then, I was the victim of a major, life changing domestic
violence event, and my life started to unwind. I had to relocate to another
state where I didn’t have a place to call home, my benefits were less, and my
mental illness was exacerbated by the isolation and trauma.
Despite the challenges I faced, I was able to find some
needed assistance for food and mental health care as I got on my feet.
Also known as “food stamps,” the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP)
was a godsend for helping me put food on the table. Throughout my life both
Medicaid and Medicare have helped with mental health treatment, and the
Supplemental Security Disability Income (SSDI) program helped keep me out of
poverty.
These are precisely the circumstances for which temporary assistance for basic needs like food, housing, and health care exists. But affordable housing was unavailable in my new home state, and SNAP benefits were much lower — even as my food needs stayed the same.
So my debts increased, and I’ve had to rely on someone who
participated in the domestic violence against me to help with rent. I have a
little income from SSDI, and I volunteer to stay engaged in my calling to teach
and help others while I fight to recover from losing my home and my ability to
keep up financially.
It’s clear that this nation’s safety net has to be stronger
so that people like me don’t fall through the cracks. But House Republicans are
currently trying to cut food
assistance and other benefits, not strengthen them.
I need more help putting food on the table. But they’re
proposing cuts to
drastically reduce federal funding for SNAP, expand already harsh working
requirements, and change how our need for healthy food is calculated, which is
likely to slash benefits. And they’re doing it all to finance $4.5 trillion in
tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest.
I just want to eat, get better, and afford safe housing so I
can get back on my feet, back to financial independence, and back to doing all
I can to help my community. Yet I and millions like me are nothing but pawns in
a political game that aims to hurt us and help those who already have wealth.
When I was teaching, I taught my students about fairness and
equality — about what it means to live in a society where we look out for each
other, where no one is left to be ill, unhoused, and hungry. I think some
politicians need to go back to school, because they seem to have forgotten
lessons like these.
So it’s our job to school them. We must let them know that basic human needs are not fair game for getting money for tax cuts for billionaires. Instead, our priorities should be healthy and safe communities for all.
Marisa Pesce is a teacher, human rights consultant, anti-poverty advocate, and volunteer with RESULTS from Providence, Rhode Island. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.
