The media calls it the most unpopular topic in America today: welfare. Every other person in San Francisco is on the dole. Pregnant teenage welfare mothers in orange nylon vests sweep the streets in "workfare" programs. Developmentally disabled couples rob banks. The trickle-down theory has dried up in the city's Mission district. Winos, crack hippies, homeless guys with shopping carts, and refugees from every other city in the nation are now "clients" demanding food stamps at the DSS.

Enter Charlene Hassler: social worker. She's become a reluctant middleman in an economic shell game. The clients are going postal - but before they'd turn on themselves, they would bite the hand that refused to feed them.