The "Welfare Queen" is a woman who stays home, refuses to work, and gets rich off welfare. Does she really exist? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, living on welfare. A great-grandmother's tricks for stretching her monthly check. And an activist who breaks every rule to help Philadelphia's poor.
David Zucchino is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and foreign editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. His new book is "Myth of the Welfare Queen." He tells Judith Strasser how the two welfare recipients he followed for several months spend their time: one tends children and trash-picks, the other is a social activist.SEGMENT 2:
Cheri Honkala, the welfare recipient and social activist mentioned in the previous interview, tells Judith Strasser that she'd rather be living a normal life than doing what she does (like building tent cities and appropriating abandoned HUD properties) but the needs of the poor are so great that she feels she has no choice.SEGMENT 3:
David Sykes is a trainer for "STRIVE" -- a job training and placement program in Boston and several other cities. Sykes tells Steve Paulson that the STRIVE program is based on "tough love" and demands that students change their attitudes and behavior. A former felon, Sykes uses his own experience to motivate others and gives several examples of the program's success.
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