List of My "Political Representatives"
A month ago I started writing to my ostensible "political representatives" about the fact that working, and legally reporting it, while on welfare in Oakland, CA leads to extensive bureaucratic punishment, including undermining housing arrangements. That's not only a problem of great personal emergency importance, it's a policy matter with huge implications for poverty-saturated and crime-ridden Oakland. We don't want to be punishing people for work and undermining their housing here.
Details here: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/work-while-on-welfare?source=c.em&r_by=11132229
Yet not a single one of these politicians replied to me, not even to offer sympathy for this problem. Several of them I've written repeatedly, notifying them that I've escalated the matter. I've tried copying journalists I thought might be interested. I've tried copying local nonprofits with an active interest in poverty issues. Still nothing.
So I'd like to make a list here of all my "political representatives" who aren't representing me at all.
Keith Carson, Alameda County Board of County Supervisors (to my understanding he's the one that actually works with Social Services policy, so I'll add his web site). http://www.acgov.org/board/district5/
Jean Quan, Mayor of Oakland
Patricia Kerrigan, President of the City Council of the City of Oakland
Barbara Parker, City Attorney of the City of Oakland
Max Anderson, my district City Council member for the City of Berkeley
Loni Hancock, State Senator
Nancy Skinner, Assembly Member for Oakland
Joan Buchanan, Assembly Member for Oakland
Mary Hayashi, Assembly Member for Oakland
Barbara Lee, U.S. House of Representatives
Jerry Brown, Governor of California
Copied to President Obama and Vice President Biden, since they make it easy to do.
Didn't bother to copy Senators Feinstein or Boxer (though they are incorporated in the MoveOn.org petition) because all they ever do is send canned replies stating they "care" about issues currently in the headlines.
With the exception of the President and the Vice President, the higher you get up the political ladder, the harder it is to reach your political representatives via email. I understand spam has been a problem, but email communication is very important for people who have no direct income and thus have no money to allocate to print out letters and buy envelopes and stamps. Governor Jerry Brown seems to be especially ducking communication from below: the email form on his web site often errors out, and he has no toll free number!!! He should have a special communication box/line just for welfare recipients who have no other means of contacting him!
I'd like to call out all three California Assembly members for bouncing constituent emails they don't want to read.
I can see the problem is the screening method here is all wrong. The political representatives are getting too much mail so they are trying to screen it by making it harder to reach them. But by making it a little more costly and a little more difficult, this just screens out the people who most need to reach them, and who most need help in a timely manner. Perhaps new communications channels could be introduced instead?
In the meantime, I'd like an explanation as to why not ONE of the above politicians I contacted, some repeatedly, thinks that fact that trying to work while on welfare is punished by a threat to housing isn't even worth a reply of "I'm sorry about that..."
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