Almost 1,000 homes depend on welfare
(CNS): The head of the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) has revealed that 971 households are receiving some kind of permanent financial support. Although there had been suggestions, because people misunderstood the department’s report, that over 8,000 people were receiving welfare, DCFS Director Jennifer Dixon told Finance Committee members Wednesday that this was incorrect and, going forward, annual reports would break down the assistance the department provides to show what it does more accurately. However, the agency helped another 1,795 households with some form of service, from help with elderly relatives to paying one-off bills for families.
Dixon explained to the Legislative Assembly's Finance Committee that the agency provides many services and the figure of 8,000-9,000 was a reflection of the number of people that could have benefited directly or indirectly from some kind of intervention from the department. By multiplying the average number of people in households (based on the census) by every home they help in some way, people arrived at the inflated figure.
Dixon said that the vast majority of those helped were not necessarily receiving financial assistance, since the figure includes intervention in family problems, adoption services and support for the elderly.
With this system of multiplication of what services are provided, the misleading figures were circulated in the community. Nevertheless, while there may not be 8,000 people on welfare, almost 1,000 homes are receiving direct financial help from government on a long term basis and almost 1,800 more households are receiving some other form of assistance, which may also include financial help with CUC bills, school lunches, medicines or providing food.
The department is propping up a significant number of local families in some way, with more than 1,300 assisted with food and 437 with rent on at least one occasion over this financial year.
Category: Local News
I wonder if all the free education been given to the expats married to Caymanians step kids arriving on our shores count as well, because the name of the game around here is still marry a Caymanian that must be working for the CS bring in a ton of their before the marriage kids and suck the island dry of free education, free health care and then rape the scholarship train in the end, which leaves the whole island with nothing behind for the rest.
I've had to sit and listen to the despair of some of these SS dependent cases and it almost always run back to them getting themselves involved with someone it blows my mind really I'm scratching my head ready to scream, males from one of two neighboring unnamed countries, who drags them down to the ground with first getting the woman pregnant then using all the money she earns to benefit himself on island and his relatives overseas, alot of them refuse to work or easily gets fired from any job they get, have serious jealousy issues, insecurity complexes and almost a primate mind set along with a complete lack of social skill levels which leaves these women living in a serious mental state of fear and terror, and this goes for both the males and females that are doing this crap, as for the females they are coming in as well and destroying families and you could almost say stealing birthrights with marrying some older Caymanian male and refusing to allow him to help or aid his biological children, who in turn endup begging for SS help, when family should be helping family, trust me there is evil in the hearts of some of these expats on this island doing this.
On the flip side there is just some, I wouldn't say lazy Caymanians because they work, but mostly in really low paying jobs, I'd just say some that believe no matter what they must have what they want right now and don't care how they get it, so they run off and buys the smartphones and the nice cars and the big homes, don't forget those annual vacations too, then when it can't be paid for runs to mommy CI Government to pay the CUC bill and the kids lunch fees but yes they must be allowed to keep their toys as well.
And last but not less, pay people better wages, and most these SS cases will simply disappear.
Please tie "welfare" into some kind of community service or work system or Cayman will end up like the city where I work. There are thousands of people collecting welfare while driving jaguars, mercedes, cadillacs and the rest of us work our butts off. They also have the newest cellphones that they do not pay for, free medical and dental, free housing, and free heat in the winter. Their children also get free breakfast and free lunch at the school. They enjoy free, yes, free food at the market and load up their grocery carts with lobsters and steaks while the rest of us working folks can not afford those luxuries. I work two jobs and these "poor" people sit home all day. I drive a 10 year old car, have a flip phone, pay my own medical and dental etc. Welfare is great for those really in need, but the system needs to be carefully regulated and it is too easily for everyone and their sister and brother to take, take, take. Makes for a lazy society.
Cayman, please think about your welfare system and make people qualify and do some type of work for the handouts!!!!!!!
So, if a approximately 1000 citizens are on welfare benefits, where are the mythical 2000 unemployed. Surely if 1000 people are on a broad range of welfare support, how many are claiming because they are out of work?
One may be led to suggest that the diatribe above is just a racist rant by an uneducated nationalist who just can't face the reality of living in the 21st century. Whether you like it or not, status means 'Caymanian', after all you are all descendants of immigrants yourselves, probably from the same country's that you illude to in your post.
True, on the status point, but only if it was legally applied for or granted. Otherwise it is void and even if not, if granted, revokable.
11:30, you bias is obvious and the biggest racist on here is you! What was reported in the post that you replied to is absolutely accurate whether or not you like it! Obviously it hit a sour note with you but fact is fact. The reason more Caymanians are not turning up at SS is because the very ones you defend have cleaned out the budget and have their own planted in there to look after them. Unemployed Caymanians are being fed and housed by relatives who were taught to be your brother's keeper. Do us a favour and return to the land that you so defend.
I'm Caymanian stupid.
Reading these comments makes me think that our “Christian Heritage – Caymankind” index may be hitting an all-time low.
You Poors need to know, that your Good Christian, Libertarian friends, simply do not like it one bit when, they see you drinking your fancy Chardonnay while enjoying you lobster, truffles and arugula salad at the Ritz, before you spend the afternoon driving around smoking crack in your brand new Mercedes, that you paid for in cash, with the bags of money DCFS keeps throwing at you.
Also, why did you not have the foresight when you were a sperm and an egg, to be born to a stable, well-educated and wealthy family?
At least you have the privilege to be treated like crap by a great Christian and free-market loving nation, with its boundless opportunities for you.
Things could be much worse. You could be living in a place that would treat you with some modicum of dignity and respect, in an atheist/socialist country like Japan or Finland.
oooooh..that is a little too close to the truth for comfort…
Since you appear to be sufficiently intelligent to write a post on cns, i can only assume you do understand that no one is even remotely suggesting that dart give away millions and millions of dollars. I am therefore at a loss as to the real purpose of your post. hopefully our new government will still be able to start colleting the millions of dollars in room taxes from dart that so rightfully belogs to this country. i suppose at this stage it is too late to recover the tens of millions in ‘concessions’ that so rightfully belong to this country.
Are you daft absolutely.
It is amazing that most of the people receiving help is not born Caymanians. Many who are also born Caymanian can be seen driving expensive cars and playing off. Why is it that the government is not requesting FULL disclosure of income and monthly spending in order to curb the abuse of this service?
…or what level of corruption has allowed so many unqualified persons move here to become a burden on us. Why are immigration not following the law?
Why is Government simply not following it’s laws! Our Laws! passed to protect us! instead we are being betrayed!
"Most of the people receiving help is not born Caymanians". Proof please. Can't provide it? No, I thought not. But no doubt you "were given to understand" that was the case. Sickening.
Ask Social Services. Ask the Schools. Ask the Health Services Authority. Ask the Police. Ask Immigration.
And since most Caymanians are not born Caymanians anyway, why are you surprised?
I suggest you ask the authorities yourself.
How many recipients have had a lien on their properties as per the requirements .
An FOI would be useful for assesment
This Dept never gives accurate information. They very rarely know what their stats are for any of the "services" they provide.
A true audit needs to be done, XXXX
"A true audit needs to be done."
That, of course, assumes that the database is auditable.
It is even suggested they may not even know who is Caymanian from who is not. It all seems to be on a "friend friend" basis, with a dose of political interference. Perhaps the RCIP should be the ones considering an audit, if no-one else will.
I had a lady come into my shop and ask me to sign a slip of paper. When asked what it was, she said it was to prove to Social Services that she was actively looking for a job. I asked if she had a résumé, or wanted to know if we had any openings. She declined and insisted all I had to do was sign the paper. While I felt like arguing, I didn't want to create a scene, so I signed it and she left without so much as a thank you.
Clearly these people have no interest in actually securing a job or contributing anything meaningful to society. Why would they when government pays their rent, their utilities, money for groceries and god only knows what else? I'm sure there are a handful of people who genuinely need the assistance, but the majority are just getting a free handout.
It boggles the mind that you would sign the paper saying she was seeking employment when in fact you knew she wasn't. Does that not make you as dishonest as she is? Did you even report the incident to the social work department?
My good fellow, You are obviously not living in cayman. If that employer was to make a complaint. I will bet that the story would be that she was looking for a job and was being turned down. And the labor board would have been down on that employer and threating for every permit. that is the true position. When those person come into your office, belive me, you would want to sign anything they present to you to get them out the door. The last time I tried to make a complaint about the same thing, I was told that "she need to eat too yu kno an yu know nobady ga hire her" And yes there are about 20 of this individuals that know the system.
So why did you sign it? By doing so you became part of the problem.
This is not exclusively a Cayman problem.
I had the same thing happen to me in Canada. I told the person (politely since I am Canadian) to get stuffed.
In every society around the world there are people who are contributors and people who are free loaders. This has been a problem since the beginning of humankind.
Agreed.
The trick for Social Services is to distinguish between those people who really need help (the elderly, mentally infirm, physically infirm etc) and those people who are looking for a free ride in life.
The difficulty lies in the fact that many truly disabled people also have a great deal of dignity and pride. The free riders, on the other hand, have no dignity, no pride, and are very good at crying rivers of crocodile tears.
It was your civil duty to refuse to sign. Don't moan now because you didn't have the moral fibre to deny her unlawful request.
And by the way, you should be arrested for facilitating her crime.
Ouch!
The only way to stop this is to create jobs for Caymanians. As long as the PPM believes that Expats come first we will always be in this position…Shame on you Alden!!!!
Thats what they did and called it the civil service. As expected it does nothing and cost the rest of us about $250 million dollars a year. Shame on them. Alden reallydoes have the tribe as his first priority. And you still don't like him.
Add the other Cayman only "day care" centres such as the post office, customs, fire service. Immigration, etc and that's a lot suckling off the government teats.
I feel sorry for the people who genuinely need help, as it takes desperation to lower your dignity to say you cannot support yourself and your family, but I do believe that there are a lot more who had no dignity to begin with who are on welfare because they simply do not wish to work and are hopelessly unemployable.
Welfare should be reserved for the elderly who have no one to care for them and those who are mentally, or physically challenged and are unable to work or look after their own affairs.
Those who are now sucking off of the system should be made to volunteer an equitable amount of time back like cleaning the Public Beaches and it's facilities, assisting in constructing a new Juvenile Rehab Centre, etc etc. There are lots of things they can do in gratitude for the assistance they get.
Does this include the CS and their families?
Without wishing to state the obvious, we have arrived at the crossroads of unsustainability.
Cayman simply cannot continue to run a “socialist” government model (intrusive government regulation of business, govt the largest employer, govt the provider of all services, govt operating businesses in competition with the private sector etc etc) and fund it based on a “capitalist” low rate tax model and in the absence of natural resources.
If we want Govt to provide everything then we will have to accept that we must inevitably pay a lot more for it.
I agree with you but unfortunately there is no free lunch. When companies feel no responsibility to help their retired employees it will be left to the Government and this burden will be much greater in years to come. I know, I know, some people dont try to provide for themselves but how much can you save when you are making $10 -$12 per hour.
I have tried to ask for help or i will lose my house tried to get work and no help either from the DOL.
And i was told that they my have space to see me for a consultation in november at social services due to the high domand of financial help.
What this is showing tcayman is doomed along with his people.
No wonder crime is rising when the governament structure are powerless and people are desperate.
Stop hiring overseas labor and and give work first to your people ………
Your government has "given" all the jobs it can afford. I guess they can toss someone out who knows what they are doing and hire you. Or toss out someone who doesn't know what they are doing and hire you. It comes to the same thing, but the fact is the government job thing is pretty much maxxed out. Time to be productive working in tourism or construction. It pays better than the government handout but you do have to show up and work.
Do you ever wonder who will pour money into the welfare services bucket if they get rid of the foreigners?? Nobody that's who. Believe it or not you government is looking out for you. They just can't say it out loud as its too embarrassing.
When will you realize that most people feeding from the welfare bucket ARE foreigners!
Proof please 17:38. I would bet you a week's lunch you cannot provide it and also that it is not true.
You want proof. ?Line them up and if you are the real deal, tell me how many of them are caymanians. Even the cayman children in the schools will tell you that they are being out numbered .They hear all of this hogwash accents in schools and try to imitate it. Do not pretend that the 2000 status grants did not equate to at least 4500 people being entitled. The politicians were warned about it and its simple mathtematics to see the proof. Go to UCCI, check the scholarship list, look at the gov hospital. Do you see caymanians anywhere? Very few and in between, thaught so. Yes most of cayman now is imported poverty.
So what you are saying is that status-grant recipients are working at the hospital and taking most of the UCCI scholarships? How does this exemplify poverty? Those people will thrive and build up a life in Cayman.
As for "hogwash accents", kids picking up accents is part of the socialization process. We have a family member who's career in voiceovers is the direct result of schoolyard mimickry. And OMG! My sister, like, totally picked up an accent? And ended sentences with a question mark? Dude, it was awsome!
No, because the foreigners that work there won't release the information! I know someone who was on one of the Boards and they complained bitterly that social services would not release information showing how many permanent residents were receiving hand outs! That is the state of affairs in this country,. I am so sick of all of you jumping on here talking crap about entitlement mentality by Caymanians etc. There is little that Caymanians receive in this country and we sure as hell have learned that we are not entitled to anything, our forefathers taught us that. So shut the hell up!
Stop passing up the jobs you don’t want and take what you can get until you can do better.
Fosters, KFC, Burger King, Hospitality, Waitress, or even Bartender which actually makes more money than some of us who sit at a desk in front of a PC all day.
Its time out for pride and entitlement…… it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do what you have to do to earn a decent living which is far better than collecting from the government.
My bet is you don't want to work because they wont pay you some ludicrous amount of money that you feel as a "born Caymanian" you deserve.
No, they don't want to work for businesses who refuse to pay them healthcare, pension or any overtime, who treat them like slaves and who conveniently don't have any money to make pay-roll when Friday comes around.
Grab what you can before it runs out prevails!
Not to worry folks so long as their stability in government errry likle ting is goin to be alright!
This and we still have people here who swear that Dart is helping our economy.
How many Caymanians were put out of work when Hobbies And Books was run in to the ground?
If H&B was run into the ground, I would put thatdown to poor management considering it had been around for 30+ years and survived. Perhaps a lack of foresight and preparation when competition looms on the horizon? Sleeping at the wheel like so many others.
I don't think Hobbies and Books needed any help in getting "run into the ground" – they did a pretty good job of that themselves. That could have been (and used to be) a really nice store but it became the most horrible place to shop. Had everything in the world but customers were on top of each other as there was no space to move in the store. You can operate like that when you're a monopoly but can't stand up to competition. Their first competitionn on West Bay Road is almost just as bad now.
Is he helping our economy absolutely
Is he making money in Cayman absolutely
Did he wake up one morning and say I have millions and millions of dolars to give away let me look at this map. There sweet little Cayman let me give them money. Absolutely not
Does it not strike you as being slightly disgraceful that a man of dart’s means has reportedly been chased out of and hunted down by several other countries for expressing his particular brand of love for them? is it really that difficultto LEARN, Cayman?
No one who has gone on welfare has ever voluntarily come off, it is a money pit and a huge scam that is been perpetrated on the hard working people of these islands.
Quick …. blame it on Jamaica, expats, status grants …. anyone.
Expats DO NOT qualify for welfare, however Jamaicans do as majority of them are on welfare! Remember 2003??? Free Status grants!!
This is frightening- no wonder there is an entitlment mentality here..unless this stops and proper training begins, Cayman is on the slippery slope
It IS frightening – there are a lot of people without jobs, and a lot of them are hesitant to go to social services and are helped by family members or friends. That makes it even more frightening as the number in need of assistance is even more than the SS records indicate.
The slide started with the grant of Mac Staus to thousands of economic dependants from neighboring Island…who are just enjoying the ride at the expense of all who work.
You all keep saying that but it looks as if its just Caymanians who are the economic dependants here. All those status holders are still working and paying into the system. Caymanians? Not so much. Blaming others really does nothing to fx the problem which is the "Intitlement" mentality those like you have grown accustom to. Get back to living on your own like the rest of us then maybe some one will listen to you.
Bullshit 13:02, lazy entitled Caymanians have been sucking hard on this welfare tit since 1980 when Jim Bodden made them think the world owed them a living.
You're the one spouting the bullshit there friend. Jim Bodden never thought the world owed him or Caymanians anything. He just advocated putting Caymanians first, and ensuring that they got the education and training that would allow them to succeed, oh yeah, and affordable housing too. He was such a capitalist, I can't believe you're accusing him of creating a welfare state! But, oh right, he also had compassion – seems you may not be the type to understand that concept.
all recipients of welfare should be means tested….. too many people hoarding and keeping valuable land/properties for no reason…..
They also should be regularly drug tested.
You are SO correct. If a person is found to have an illegal substance in their blood and receiving a government hand out that person should be banned from government assistance for at least a year.
I guarantee a couple hundred people would fall of the list over night.
It may sound harsh but that’s a way to get rid of some of the bad apples.
You imagine we have crack heads getting government assistance!! SMH
"I guarantee a couple hundred people would fall of the list over night."
I guarantee a couple of hundred people would then start lurking in good neigbourhoods looking for an easy break and enter opportunity.
Yeah, because that has worked so well in Florida… What a huge waste of money and resources, without any results (other than the ususal right wing talking points).
Before you click thumbs down, please read the research.
In a culture of non accountability that would be pointless.
And driving new cars and talking on the latest phones.