I helped a Mexican woman, who got her green card from Carters amnesty program, by allowing her AND HER SIX KIDS to stay in my home while she looked for work. My wife found her a job, but she quit after two days because she wanted to be with her kids. This was in the very early nineties and welfare paid this illegal alien approximately $1,200 a month, but the job only paid $1,500.
After six weeks we got her into some government housing thing and never looked back. I’m done with that sort of thing and learned a valuable lesson.
Get $300 less /month for sitting on her butt? Don't blame her, I'd do the same thing if I had lesser morals.
'Tis what's wrong with the system. Depending, I usually don't begrudge a hand up - for instance, you gave her a place to stay while she looked for work. It's when that degenerates into a constant handout that I get a little wrathy.
I'm actually surprised that she didn't work AND collect bennies. That was by far the most common fraud perpetrated, according to Mom. It's not too hard to figure out what's happening when a "client" of hers would show up driving a late model sports car....there's another income stream flowing into the household from somewhere.
What's worse is that the gov't auditors were "discouraged" from looking too hard at such things. I'm not sure of the politics and how it worked, but basically if the welfare recipient's case manager (Mom) caught them working (doubledipping), she could easily do something about it (check with employers, I'm guessing the tax dept, and so on). But when an auditor saw something out of line (someone on foodstamps driving a Mercedes, which happened frequently) they weren't allowed to make inquiries.
This was 15+ years ago. I can't imagine that it's changed all that much. More illegals, maybe.
And, for what it's worth, your comment about the lice made me laugh out loud.