Worked Over Something Awful

America, where pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is a bit difficult due to all the sharp bootstrap-cutting objects lying in your path.

A Tupelo woman hired earlier this month by a KFC was fired Monday after the franchise owner discovered she’s homeless.

Eunice Jasica has been staying at the Salvation Army lodge since early December after losing her job, her car and her home.

The nonprofit organization requires its residents to seek employment daily and, upon finding it, to pay for lodging and start saving for a place of their own. Jasica said she had been job hunting for months and was relieved to find work on March 11 at the KFC on North Gloster Street.

A document signed by that location’s general manager on March 12 confirms Jasica had been hired to perform “prep work” and would receive a paycheck every two weeks.

But when Jasica reported for duty Monday, franchise owner Chesley Ruff withdrew the job offer upon learning she lived at the Salvation Army.

“He told me to come back when I had an address and transportation,” Jasica recalled. “But how am I supposed to get all that without a job?”

Firing someone you hired because they don’t have a place to live when the entire reason they took the job was to be able to afford a place to live, and you don’t pay enough to afford a place to live?  I’m betting Chesley Ruff is a lifelong Republican.

Luckily, this story now has a better ending.

A woman fired from a KFC in Tupelo for being homeless has found a new job and an outpouring of support.

Eunice Jasica was tentatively hired Tuesday by On Time Transportation to shuttle Medicaid and Medicare patients to and from doctors’ appointments. She still must complete the final stages of her application process but should be on the job by early April, said the company’s office manager, Yolanda Baskin.

The much larger problem is America is largely designed to keep poor people poor, and ridiculously rich people ridiculously rich.