Myth of the Welfare Queen: A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist's Portrait of Women on the Line
Welfare moms are "the most hated women in America," says Cheri Honkala, a  dynamic activist from Philadelphia who is profiled in the engrossingMyth of the Welfare Queen.  As the American mood toward welfare turned mean in the mid-1990s and politicians worked to radically  change who got benefits and for how long, Honkala used her considerable talents in guerrilla theater to  fight bureaucrats on behalf of a rising tide of dispossessed women and children. She keeps the TV news  spotlight on the homeless with a host of inspired acts: a long-term tent city for displaced families, the  takeover of a church, a grungy encampment next to the Liberty Bell. Nonetheless, folks dispute how  helpful such confrontations are. Odessa Williams, a resourceful, resilient woman who supports four  grandchildren and then doubles that number when new troubles strike, is the other sympathetic subject in  this tough, humanizing portrait of women on welfare by Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor David  Zucchino.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.