Monday, August 15, 2016

Things poor people do

Today we got a letter welcoming a family member to a program run through a local nonprofit, which requires participants to be low income. Without going into too many details, since it's a small, specialized program, I'll just say that it's something that has a great reputation and is no doubt going to be very helpful. 

I was reminded yet again of how society views me though when I saw that the welcome letter required all household members to sign an agreement that while on premises, we will refrain from harassment, assault, drugs, weapons, theft, and so forth. I should probably mention that this place is in the suburbs. And provides a number of services and programs. The other programs we've participated in at this place weren't exclusively for poor people, so they didn't have us sign any "be sure not to act ghetto" agreement. I mean, OK, I've worked in the nonprofit world enough that I get the reasoning behind having a signed agreement so you can kick people out as it becomes necessary. But could they really not have used the generic "abide by all rules and regulations" one-liner instead of needing to send us a detailed list of all the things poor people better make sure not to do? 

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