“Look, I am no dead-beat dad, but if I’m not working, how can I give her money for the children?” asked Rudie, a young man standing outside a Miami court, awaiting a child-support hearing.

Desreen, the mother of three who took Rudie to court, said she had no financial support from him “for well over a year,” although the court authorized him to pay child support early last year. She said she had no choice but to take him to court. “I filed the case against him over six month ago, and today is the first time the case has been called. It’s very frustrating.”

This frustration caused from delays in child support cases, has become commonplace in Florida.

According to reports from Tallahassee, the state’s family court system is choked with child support cases. As the state’s economy continues to struggle, more fathers are finding it difficult to support their children, and more mothers have turned to the courts to force the fathers to pay support.

On the other hand, fathers like Rudie, who have child support court orders but can’t pay the amounts ordered, are also trying to have the courts review their cases.

Mothers like Desreen, who are trying to get court appointed child support, have to wait some six months to get a hearing; and parents trying to get court ordered payments modified because of wage cuts or unemployment, have to wait up to three months. A year ago both legal processes took three to six weeks to be heard, the reports say.

With the demand from cases for child support growing, court officials in the state are clamoring for additional staff – a demand that is unlikely to be fulfilled with the state strapped for cash.

Laticia Moss, a Fort Lauderdale social worker says the situation is grave. “Children in South Florida are suffering because mothers are not getting support, and can’t get the court to enforce support fast enough. Fathers who cannot afford the amounts the court has set are also having a hard time getting their case modified so they can pay less.”

Fathers seeking to have their child support payments reduced have doubled across the state since 2006, the reports state.

Rudie says he wants his case reviewed because “It’s very hard on me.” He adds that since he couldn’t make court-authorized child support payments his driver’s license was suspended. “Now, I have no ID to get a job. If I can’t get a job, I can’t pay anything.”

Attorneys verified that a consequence of not paying court approved child support can be suspension of one’s driver’s license. Other possible consequences are garnishment of salary and bank accounts, and, because not paying child support is considered a “flaw in one’s moral character,” it can be a deterrent in getting citizenship approval.

While established attorneys and legal-aid organizations can help in child support or for modification of child support cases, it is the court system that has to consider these requests. So, unless the state court system can find ways of alleviating the current bottleneck without increasing their paid staff, people like Rudie and Desreen must exercise patience for their respective requests to be heard by the courts.