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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Confusing
This week I hired people to build a railing on each side of my porch steps and to clean out my back yard in preparation for the privacy fence I want built. I expected to pay by check, but, at the last minute, had to run to the bank for cash. They don't have a bank account, cannot get one, and, so, would be unable to cash a check.
At first I scorned this absurd idea, "WHAT? Sure you can get a checking account. Who ever heard of a bank that turned down money?"
This morning over breakfast coffee I began with Wachovia Bank Online. Hm...in order to get a checking account or to establish a savings account, you must have a social security photo-identity card.
These young people don't have drivers' licenses. How could they get a state identity card? Well, they'd have to present a birth certificate as well as proof of residency. Oops.
Can't present proof of residency if you only shack up in a vacant garage, don't have an address where people send bills...don't actually have an address at all. They're here. They've been here for a long time, but can't prove it.
OK. I guess those kids won't be getting a bank account. Come to think of it, I don't see how they'll ever get one. They aren't eligible for housing because they don't have any of the paperwork a landlord would require. No one is going to rent to a tenant with no documentation. No utility would hook up phone/water/heat for just a guy who said, "Here's some money. Hook me up."
This suspicious world where everyone has to carry proofs, it's a tough time and place if you're young and in trouble. Who but someone like me would hire these folks? When might they expect to see themselves indoors with heat, a bathroom, and a telephone? How can they ever hope to rise above the most hand-to-mouth poverty?
Once more the plight of the homeless has me vicariously scared, thankful that my life is so comfortable, worried about an underclass of undocumentables born and raised in the USA but unable get on the road out of poverty because they lack the necessary paperwork.
There's that public outcry about undocumented aliens in the USA, using government services but not paying taxes. What I had not considered prior to this week is the bad situation of USA citizens who can't prove that they belong where they are and...worse, who won't maybe ever be able to assemble those proofs because of an inpenetrable web of requirements.
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