Posted on 01/13/2005 4:17:21 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
Like thousands of other single women living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Brigette, 24, collects Medicaid and food stamps. Unlike most of her neighbors, she's white and a college graduate—the kind of welfare recipient rarely considered in debates over public assistance. Brigette, whose parents and two sisters run a restaurant in rural Vermont, got her B.A. in film from Bard College, a top-tier liberal arts school in upstate New York. She moved to New York City about two years ago to pursue experimental filmmaking. As young self-styled bohemians have always done, she found a neighborhood with cheap rent and cobbled together a living from various gigs—in her case, waitressing and assisting more established filmmakers. The idea was to leave time for her own projects.
But then, two and a half months ago, she lost the job at the diner. Her two film posts together pay just $140 a week, and her rent is $600 a month, so things got lean quickly. Brigette was also missing payments on her $17,000 in student loans; she is now over $1,000 in arrears.
"I was really hungry—no food in my house, no money to buy food, my pants were all falling off, and I was like, something's not working out here," she says. "Then I got this raging ear infection." With no health insurance, Brigette went to the emergency room and later applied for Medicaid to cover her bills. "I figured as long as I'm applying for this, I should go across the street and apply for food stamps." After a six-hour wait at the office on Thornton Street, Brigette was awarded $147 a month, which she spends at her local C-Town supermarket on beans, rice, greens, and peanut butter.
(Excerpt) Read more at villagevoice.com ...
I re-read the story. You know, she might be crazy. I've been in and around the arts thing in NYC for decades and have only heard of one or two cases of this. The vast majority (99.999%) of people who don't have family money work bad jobs before they make it.
Your point is valid.
Maybe the welfare system should have a payback when you make it clause set up.
It's a thing, okay? To be young, broke and hopeful in NYC is something special. No joke. I still keep in touch with some of the people I knew from that time in my life. One guy who was working minimum wage at a copy shop is now making mid six figures and misses the old days of counting change out at a Blarney Stone for a beer...
This bimbo just wants a free ride.
...she wants a free ride and she's missing the show along with opportunities. I'd give you two to one odds that she thinks deals are done over dinner or in bars. The way alot -- A LOT -- of people break in is because the guy re-stocking shelves next to you at the Strand has a cousin whose room mate is casting an indepdent film and needs a camera person. Or the guy who quit last year to take a job at a production company is now working for an agent...etc. etc.
I miss being young and broke...(actually, I missed the young part more).
You know whereof you speak! :-)
I don't miss being young.
Ah,,,the memories of an ill spent youth.
Been there, done that. It was a blast. I still catch snatches of it in NY. Guy gets on the train at 57th going downtown talking to a girl in a hushed voice, then out of nowhere, "You haven't read Gogol! You have to read Lost Souls! Have to!" Takes me back decades...
Performance art!
Oh,but my youth wasn't "misspent"! :-)
Truthfully, I don't know if I could survive another go round at youth...but it was fun and, I like to think, well spent.
Curiously, I offer bimbos the occasional free ride.
There is no free rides in the arts, particularly film. Everything costs more than you think it will.
I had an enchanted time,on a personal level,but I wouldn't relieve it! There's good and bad times in everyone's life. My courtship and marriage was really like a sappy,old fashioned Technicolor movie (think "BARFOOT IN THE PARK" only better/nicer!),but why go back?
You sound like an end quote from a Cindy Adams column! ROTFLOL
You would! LOL
You're allowed pretension when you're young and everything is new.
I dated a few boys like that when I was a teen...then I grew up and moved on. LOL
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