Newbie Report

Tonight was mine and Natalia's first time working the Clinic; contrary to my expectations, I was glad to find that it was relatively slow-paced and not too overwhelming. I really liked talking to these people and lightening the mood when I could, and being able to [metaphorically] translate concepts into digestible and understandable forms.

Our first 'client,' Moussa, was returning to report back to WATCH about his apartment search for him, his wife, and 18-month-old daughter. The two he had contacted were both great options, he said that both landlords seemed very kind and reasonable. He explained further though, that one was an attic, and he was worried about the possibilities of his active and adventurous toddler getting hurt (though the landlord told him she would rent the first floor to him in a heartbeat if the current residents moved out, which was not going to happen.) The second option he found had about 5 other competitors for the space... as well as... dun dun dun- THE L WORD (I actually think the first option might have had lead as well). If he decided not to rent to Moussa, Natalia and I detected that it could be grounds for a discrimination claim, as he would be evading his responsibility to spend money on removing the lead by choosing to rent to someone with no children under 6. We decided to help him keep looking, though, rather than confront the landlord at risk of beginning a landlord-tenant relationship with a foundation of contention and resentment. We found one apartment on good ol Craigslist, entered him in a housing lottery that Robyn recommended, and showed him another website that he could check daily for apartments.

Our second set was definitely more frustrating to deal with. Josama and Rosette's issue did not have to do with housing, and they spoke French, with only Josama speaking minimal English. Josama works, and Rosette receives a monthly check of $83 (not '$83,00'- as I corrected Natalia's silly silly Euro-habits) from Social Services, though she had received an accidental overpayment of $4,000 (it took quite some time, and some convoluted answers to coax this number out), and we were helping them to fill out an extremely tedious packet/questionnaire ultimately to explain why she couldn't pay back Social Services the money that they had mistakenly granted her. As we went through the packet asking them the questions, it grew difficult to understand where the money went and how they did not realize/report that something abnormal had happened the moment it did. I found this to be understandable, though, considering they might have been from a place where banking oddities like this occur often and don't necessarily receive oversight, or perhaps they figured Social Services couldn't be wrong so the money must have somehow been rightly awarded to them. Nevertheless/ in the real world, the money still needed to be accounted for and their situation explained convincingly to Social Services. Trying to re-word complicated questions on the packet proved to be difficult, and their answers were not clear most of the time. While recording all of their assets for the packet, we learned that Josama had recently purchased a 2011 Kia Sorento with a down payment of $4,000. Natalia pieced it together and brought to my attention the match between the down payment and owed money. The packet was halfway complete when the Clinic closed, and we asked Josama and Rosette to come back on Thursday so that we could continue to help them through this process, which I'm sure is foreign and threatening to them. I'm not sure what Social Security will do with it once it is submitted, but this really reinforced for me the idea that most of these situations are so subjective that it might not be easy to completely and wholeheartedly validate the client, but since we are the only ones they have on their side, I think it's our duty to do as much as we can for them, or at least ease the process for them.

SEE Y'ALL AT THE CRACK OF DAWN.

-Hanna