Differential treatment

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-27-2008
Differential treatment
Fri, 06-27-2008 - 4:23am

The State of Washington's Child Support Enforcement Agency discriminates against single parents with court orders. These parents receive court orders to try to attempt to get forced financial assistance from the absent parent who dodges paying for the food, clothing, and shelter, the children need. The need for these court orders are for the children's survival when the custodial parent cannot safely reside together with the non-custodial parents. In my case, my ex-partner was abusive to our four children and refused to pay support. When I got the court order, a judge told me that The Child Support Enforcement Agency would assist me. However, for over nearly 10 years, the Agency has barely had any results. It is as if they have been sitting on my case doing nothing. I had to make phone calls. I had to find out what State the non-custodial parent skipped off to. I had to build a bridge between two agencies from two different states. All of this had to be done because the agency did nothing. The last small payment we received was from last December. When his taxes were paid, the State collected 5,000.00 which was a normal process based on the Federal Distribution Law where they gave the State the right to retrieve tax refunds. But, they also took the absent parents stimulous payment as well. There was no basis for this because it was not added into the law since Bush just decided to distribute these funds back to Americans. The agency is now refusing to release any funds from the court order back to my family. In the meantime, my teen daughter has to borrow maxi-pads from her friends and all of the children need socks and underwear. And, one of our neighbors bought my son some tennis shoes because his were ripped and have holes in them.