Cars at DSS office vs. low income shopping centers
 

Today I was driving by the local "Department of Social Services" office when, on a whim, I pulled into the lot to observe the cars, age and condition.

There were a hundred or so in the lot, two were clearly county vehicles. 10% looked like vehicles I have seen single women working low wage jobs driving (I knew those women), maybe a dent, mismatched tires, a window missing covered with plastic and duct tape, older models, and such. These women paid their own rent or house payment (far into the lending years - lower than rent), some had small children or were taking care of other relatives. There is no child support or alimony for these women and they don't access public services. I have no idea how they do it, lots of careful shopping and maybe potatoes, rice and beans for filler.

The other 90% of vehicles, excluding a couple of tweakermobiles, seemed to belong to people of moderate blue collar means.

So, I drove over to a "Ranch Market" which is patronized by lower income and people from other countries. The rate of the "single low wage working woman" type of cars was about 30%.

After that I proceeded to the parking lot of of a corporate market with a definite low income clientele: it was about 60% for "single mom" cars.

While I should have gone into the welfare office to see for myself what apparent sort of people were inside obtaining services, it is odd that there were far more relatively newer, more expensive and better maintained cars in the welfare parking lot than than there were in markets largely patronized by obvious low income shoppers.

There's youtube video on my account, or SOS account called "Welfare Cadillac". It was from a day that I spent a few hours observing the WIC office

There were a few cars in the DSS parking lot that even average two income families might not be able to afford... and certainly not on a county DSS employee income...

I found the SOS Welfare Cadillac video, if it's the same one it's very short and not very descriptive.

There was a news report from SO. Cal. I found.

Others I found that appeared to be a news report from Georgia concerning WIC and some satire pieces, doesn't even scratch the surface for searching.

So Cal news report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHIuXnNKKGo

Georgia segment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqLrvwplCiY

Satire concerning SO. Cal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luo40WjBKWI

SOS Welfare Cadillac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0L6yfvLaeM

1970 song Welfare Cadillac by Guy Drake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq-hx73or30

Unfortunately it was from a thread on the old SOS forum, and included pictures and related material.