by James A. Bacon
During my urban homesteading days in Richmond’s gritty Church Hill some 20 years ago, I lived on a block that, at any given point in time, had two or three crack houses. Gunshots were common background noise. There was a triple homicide in one house, and a separate triple shooting (only one homicide, as I recall) that took place on the school yard a block away. One evening, police car lights were throbbing in front of a ramshackle house about four down from mine. I wandered down to see what was amiss.
The police, as it turns out, had conducted a raid on one of the crack houses. A woman holding an infant was pleading with the officers, “Don’t take my baby away from me! Please, don’t take my baby.” It was heart breaking.
I’d never been inside a crack house before and asked if I could step in for a look. The officers had no objection. The house was stripped almost totally bare — the only furnishing was an old mattress. The downstairs stank of filthy diapers. The kitchen appeared empty, although I did not actually check the refrigerator and cupboards. I’d seen plenty of poverty before, in Appalachian hollows, in Martinsville trailer parks and all around me in Church Hill. But I’d never seen anything as destitute, and dissolute, as this.
So, when legislators debate the merits of subjecting certain welfare recipients to drug testing as a condition for receiving benefits, I question whether many of them have the faintest idea what they’re talking about. On a party-line vote, Democrats in the Social Services Committee voted against a bill submitted by Sen. Stephen H. Martin, R-Chesterfield, that would require local social services departments to screen welfare recipients for possible drug use and test those it believes could be using controlled substances. A positive response could result in the loss of benefits under the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF).
In the minds of some, such a measure would be unfair to welfare recipients. “Are there any people receiving money from the commonwealth who are tested for drugs other than poor people?” asked Sen. Yvonne D. Miller, D-Norfolk, according to Jim Nolan’s account in the Times-Dispatch.
Even more absurdly, Sen. Mamie E. Lock, D-Hampton, wondered why the state doesn’t test CEOs of corporations who receive state tax credits.
I’m no defender of corporate subsidies, but I’ll say this: Instances of corporate CEOs abusing drugs to the extent that his (or her) children are malnourished, in pain from untreated diaper rash or otherwise suffering from abuse or neglect are exceedingly rare. Instances of welfare mothers abusing drugs, sadly, are all too common. Moreover, when welfare mothers take money meant for their children to support their drug habits, they have no other legal means to support themselves. Some of them end up like the woman I saw on Clay Street. Taxpayers don’t like paying for a welfare recipient’s crack habit, and I don’t blame them. But that’s not the real issue. The real tragedy is the child neglect that results from drug abuse in poor households.
As Hillary Clinton once reminded us, “It takes a village.” Well, when the “village” is dispensing welfare to poor women and their children — as is the case with TANF — it also needs to enforce expectations of appropriate behavior. One of those standards, a low one, admittedly, is, you cannot use your welfare money to buy drugs. And if we catch you on drugs, we’re going to assume that you’re spending your welfare money on them instead of your children.
It would be nice if the liberal wing of the Democratic Party showed as much concern for defenseless children as for their drug-abusing mothers.
If there is a flaw in the legislation, it is this: If a drug-abusing welfare mom can’t support her children on a regular TANF check, how can she support them with a reduced TANF check? What will happen to the children? Should they be allowed to suffer? Should they be removed from the custody of the mother? Should the mother be compelled to enroll in a substance abuse program? I don’t know. There are no easy answers. But subsidizing drug abuse is not one of them.
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