Discouraging house hunting for parents in Seal Beach
I’m writing this letter in hopes of shedding some light on the current rental market for families in Seal Beach.
My husband and I (married 12 years) have been looking for a two-bedroom rental in Seal Beach since October 2012.
After five months of searching, we are definitely getting discouraged. We are homeowners ourselves with our own rental property and know the process in and out.
The problem hasn’t been our credit, or income. My husband is a firefighter and I have worked for the school district the past nine years.
Unfortunately, the issue has been our beautiful two daughters, age 6 and 4.
I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I have viewed a property without the kids and have been told we are the perfect fit and actually set a time to sign a lease, twice
. The second we disclose our two children, the mood changes and it shifts to, “please complete an application for review and if it’s a good fit someone will get back to you.”
Owners have told us straight out: “We frown on children, it’s just not that type of property.”
The last two-bedroom home we looked at the landlord giving us a tour asked if we smoked or had pets. We replied no to both. She then said, “Good, the place is yours then … I’m so glad I found a young professional couple to reside here that doesn’t have kids.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing!
This is unethical and wrong on so many levels, not to mention against the law.
For Seal Beach being the fourth friendliest place in America (according to Forbes Magazine Jan 2013) it sure isn’t very friendly to young families trying to establish in the community. Shame on you, Seal Beach.
Shaylee Clark
Seal Beach
The Personal Responsibility Act blames single mothers
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (Personal Responsibility Act; PRWORA) of 1996, also known as welfare, is designed to encourage single mothers to rejoin the workforce with dignity and responsibility in order to provide for their families rather than rely on public assistance.
This legislation encourages self-reliance and independence for low-income single mothers and aims to encourage them to join the work force.
This legislation sounds like it has good intentions.
However, in practice, the PRWORA targets and blames single mothers for their perceived lack of education and low social economic status.
This act penalizes poor women for failing to function as independent economic actors in our society.
PRWORA clearly alludes to single mothers being of inferior moral fiber and punishes them for choosing to be the head of their households.
This legislation devalues single mothers for failing to conform to society’s definition of a nuclear family.
The act values normative traditional relationships as exemplified by the requirement of states to fund abstinence education in an effort to prevent and/or eliminate out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
It overtly discriminates against single mothers in favor of two-parent families.
PRWORA labels single mothers as “lazy, sexually-indulgent, and overly-fertile.”
According to Gwendolyn Mink, “PRWORA codifies the claim that marriage is the best anti-poverty policy.”
Notably, for the sake of economic stability, this act promotes the continuation of marriages even when couples are facing unhealthy intimate relationships.
We need to strongly urge lawmakers to reform this faulty and discriminatory legislation.
It is time that we demand that any proposed reform of this act instead promotes sufficient and realistic educational support and goals for single mothers, in terms of the time line so as to enable them to successfully function as independent economic actors.
Sara Tousi, Wesley Norvell, Derek Baldridge, Dahiana Guadarrama, and Tiease Lee
CSU, Long Beach
masters of social work
students
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