Proposal Would Force Foster Kids to Buy Used Clothing

If a new cost-cutting measure from Michigan State Sen. Bruce Casswell passes, only clothes from used clothing stores could be purchased for children in the foster care system. Casswell told Michigan Public Radio: "I never had anything new. I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was — and quite frankly it’s true — once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.” Gilda Jacobs executive director of he Michigan League for Human Services disagrees. She thinks poor kids are too good to wear Dukes of Hazzard shirts or parachute pants. Jacob says: "Honestly, I was flabbergasted. I really couldn’t believe this. Because I think, gosh, is this where we’ve gone in this state? I think that there’s the whole issue of dignity. You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes. You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.”

Comments

Way to go!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Right on, Bruce Casswell, because FUCK THOSE KIDS!

Who needs a legislature?

[Toe, The]

If the state is so desperate to save money, then they should probably cut all spending on the legislature. When I was a kid, I never my own legislature. And honestly, when you get out of the state, nobody even knows where your laws came from anyway.

Sorry... just trying to make as much sense as the esteemed Senator.

Re:Who needs a legislature?

[DaMattster]

Absolutely! Who needs a bloated bureaucracy to run a beleaguered state? Start pairing down the legislative staff and, voila, you got your savings.

Shoes are different

[bill_mcgonigle]

We get most of our kids' clothes at second-hand stores. Around here they don't take stained or damaged stuff, so it's impossible to tell a difference from new clothing aside from price.

I always buy them new shoes, though - shoes don't wear well across multiple kids, unless they're totally flat, like snow boots, because they get broken in to fit the foot.

Given that, I have a hard time accepting that I should pay extra tax money so that foster kids can have fancier clothes than my kids have. But, really it seems silly - give the foster parents the right amount of money and let them figure out where to buy the required clothes that can be bought for that much money. If they can't handle that then they probably can't really handle being foster parents either.

Re:Shoes are different

[sjames]

That's the thing. There is a huge chasm of difference between buying second-hand clothes when it makes sense and as much as makes sense and having the state tell you in effect that BY LAW you are deemed unworthy of anything else. As if foster kids don't tend to have enough issues to work out as it is including feelings of unworthiness and isolation.

My best guess is that the savings will all go to the senator's mustache wax fund. You go through a lot of it with all that twirling.

Re:Shoes are different

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said, sjames. That was the conclusion I came to: while it makes perfect fiscal sense to have foster kids get second-hand clothing, telling them that that is all they can get is illegal. The other issue I saw is in the execution: one of the articles about this mentions that the kids are given gift cards that are only redeemable at used-clothes stores. This shoves it in their faces: "Here is your special currency only good at certain places. You can't mingle with the normal folk and their nice new clothes, even if there are sales there". I would imagine that getting anything new for foster kids is like Christmas come early, so just shoving it down their throats that they can't have new things would be a crushing blow to them.

Why stop there?

[Meskarune]

I say we make them sew their own clothes out of discarded sheets and military tents.