Letter to a State Represenative

September 9, 2012

State Representative, Paul Muxlow

S-1187 House Office Building

P.O. Box 30014

Lansing, MI 48933

Dear State Representative, Muxlow,

Recently, you announced that a $105,134 grant was awarded to Blue Water Safe Horizons to help homeless families regain stability and permanent housing. You also announced that another grant for $89,599 was awarded to the Blue Water Center for Independent Living. Although I am glad to see that the community that I live in, go to school in and work in is being helped, I have mixed emotions in regards to the issue of homelessness and welfare in our area.

While I agree that homelessness is an issue in the community and that we are in desperate need of the additional funds, I also wonder what incentive the individuals using these programs have to try to help themselves and how many benefiting from the funds are actually from our area?

First, are individuals receiving assistance required to seek employment? If so, what are the guidelines? I feel that individuals receiving assistance should be required to apply for jobs on a daily basis. Whether it be as a result of job advertisements, through a temporary employment agency or a job placement program. This requirement should not be satisfied simply by stopping at a business and having someone sign a form stating that they were there seeking employment. They may not have even applied for a job at the business. There are jobs out there for employable individuals! However, I work at a local store and I can’t even count how many times I have heard the phrase, “I make more on assistance so why would I get a job.” I sometimes feel that it is too easy. Perhaps we can go to a system of partnering with temporary employment agencies and/or local businesses to place individuals in jobs? With consequences for those that refuse employment that they are able to do, whatever it may be.

The other issue that concerns me is that individuals that don’t...