Poverty: Easing the Pain, Part 2

NOTE: This entry continues two previous posts--"Poverty Sim: Walk in My Shoes" and "Poverty: Easing the Pain, Part 1."

REMINDER: The ideas included in this blog post are not terribly new—most have been at least attempted. And, keep in mind that my goal in sharing these ideas is NOT to end poverty, but simply to remove some of the stresses that are added to poor people’s lives because they are poor. Most of these ideas are met with skepticism, others with outright hostility. Alas. I can’t let a negative reception keep me from putting all of these ideas together in writing in a publicly available forum.

ODJFS: Burn-out prevention Thanks to cutbacks in almost every program for poor people, county Job & Family Services departments across the state are under great stress. They have laid off workers to cut their budgets at the same time that the number of people requiring services has soared. This puts the remaining workers—the ones charged with helping the poor—under great stress.

          I call upon my own memory of the poverty simulation I participated in recently. I was the mortgage banker in this valuable role-play experience, collecting rent and mortgage payments from poor people. The rapidity with which I developed an intolerance and even a scorn for the people I served was shocking to me. It was stressful to see that I was powerless to help and was often the agent of pain for my customers. I don’t know if this bears on the stress carried by JFS caseworkers, but I have seen some workers treat some clients with the same rudeness and eye-rolling that came over me in the simulation.

          These workers need help. They need a plan for burn-out prevention. I don’t know what the plan would be—massages at work? Weekly debriefing sessions? Free coffee and bagels every morning? New desk chairs? (OK, the desk chair thing is personal—I know a new desk chair would be valuable to me personally.) I think regular infusions of food from our local wunder-chef, Chef Mary from Flutes & Peppercorns, would be a welcome stress reliever. Anyway, something needs to be done for these dedicated professionals to help them feel like something other than a paper-pusher or payment policer.

Expand OBB (Ohio Benefit Bank) The Ohio Benefit Bank (OBB) is a wonderful computer program that determines likely eligibility for various programs, from food stamps to FAFSA, from TANF to tax filing. (TANF is “temporary assistance for needy families,” pronounced TAN-iff.)  Individuals may process themselves through the OBB program, but usually a trained volunteer guides the data collection and entry. OBB is a one-stop application process; applications are generated and sent directly to appropriate agencies, whether it is for your Golden Buckeye Card or for WIC for your baby.

          OBB can be used anywhere there is a computer and internet service (like our shiny new McDonalds in McArthur). Or, it can be used at your bedside at a retirement home. Or, you can use it by yourself on a computer at the library. The casualness of the settings removes barriers for many people, especially people who are dropping painfully out of the middle class and cannot face going “up on the hill” (as we say about Vinton County’s JFS) to apply for assistance.

          Some Job & Family Services offices see OBB as a competitor—something that is eroding their authority. OBB counters that the program only allows people to apply for benefits more easily—JFS still has total control over determination and administration of benefits. I hope that these two entities can find a way to co-exist or even cooperate in bringing services to poor people.

Appalachia last in line: 2-1-1 The twenty or so counties who still do not have 2-1-1 information line service are all in counties designated as poor and Appalachian. The Appalachian counties that do have 2-1-1 are often serviced through neighboring non-Appalachian counties—and that’s fine.

          But a county like Vinton is surrounded by other struggling counties. Who is going to step up? Where is the funding going to come from? The United Way is the implementer of 2-1-1 in many counties, but my United Way only has one part-part-time employee—me.

          I think It’s funny that between United Way and my other employer, I am sort of a mini-2-1-1, a referral service to a range of callers. And my efforts pale compared to the real 2-1-1 woman in Vinton County—Brandi Betts of the Chamber of Commerce. Thank you, Brandi, for your patience with so many random requests for information.

          2-1-1 would assist every resident to navigate among care providers, find the food pantries, find Sojourners for runaway and homeless youth services or for Youthbuild or work programs. 2-1-1 would focus only on helping and not be torn by numerous other responsibilities. When are the poor people of Appalachian Ohio going to get it?

Subsidize family activities: The free ride I remember from my own impoverished childhood what it felt like to  be left out, what it meant to never go to the amusement park everyone else was excited about, to never ride the rides at the county fair. That’s just one reason I am proposing that we find ways to subsidize rides at local events such as McArthur’s Wild Turkey Festival (no, not THAT kind of Wild Turkey) and the Vinton County Junior Fair.

          When I mention this idea, many people respond with outright hostility. They refuse to consider it. As I often observe, there is a feeling that the poor must be punished for being poor.

          But I insist. Let’s find funding for all children to ride free. It shouldn’t be necessary for families to sacrifice food or rent money to make sure their kids can ride the rides.

         In Vinton County, where 90% of schoolchildren qualify for free lunch (highest percentage in Ohio), the school district recently decided to just give free lunch to every child. Everyone gets to eat. No more stigma of being identified as one of the free lunch kids. This generous act may have been the result of financial realities, but it is the free lunch for all attitude of the schools that made me think about free rides at local events. Now, where do we apply for the free tilt-a-whirl grants?

My parents used a pencil and
ruler to make their own
spreadsheet.

Sidebar: The Frugal Poor--My Parents

          My family was poor--poorer than my sisters and I really understood. As with all children, our own family was the norm--we couldn't believe what went on in other families! Others were "less" normal than us.

         What set my family apart from other poor families is that my parents had a plan. From their church, they learned about budgeting and tithing and record-keeping. (To figure your tithing, you had to keep track of your income and expenses--sort of like God was your shareholder.) We always asked whether something was a necessity--and the opposite of "necessity" was "no." There was always a big sheet of paper magnetized to the fridge, on which my mom or dad would record anything we spent individually or as a family. This was a good thing and kept us off public assistance and kept us housed, clothed, and fed. We even had some savings. 

         However--yep, there's a "however"--the budget of my parents didn't allow for much extravagance in the fun-having department. Our gifts from Santa were a bit on the practical side (while our poorer neighbor kids received a lavish haul every year--we were jealous). And only once do I remember going on a non-church-camp vacation. (We hardly knew what to do with ourselves.) And we seldom rode the rides or saw the latest Disney movie.

We always got "books" of Lifesavers for
Christmas--and socks and underwear, of course.

         I felt that I was privy to some deep knowledge in terms of how my parents handled money. I knew my parents were doing the right thing. But I hated it. I had wants that just wouldn't go away--my wants had way more to do with not seeming peculiar than about a deep urge to ride a Ferris wheel or eat an elephant ear or see a movie. I became my own outcast, went about in my own world, became mentally inventive, grew into a writer. But I have never lost the outsider mentality fostered by my parents' budgeting zeal (and other family peculiarities, of course). I'm pretty frugal, too, and it has kept me marginally afloat during the past several lean years. But it's still not fun. Free rides would be great.

Poverty Sim: Walk in My Shoes

Why am I interested in the poor?

First, I've been pretty poor at times, getting closer to the fire than I ever dreamed. Imagine Star Trek's Enterprise skimming the outer edge of a planet's atmosphere, feeling the heat, but pulling out just before being burned to a cinder. That's me and poverty. I've never really  had to land on that planet, live its culture, get wet from its rains, experience the upheavals of its plate tectonics. I've just skimmed. My parents were poor and I was raised poor, but Mom and Dad managed (through hard work and amazing self-sacrifice) to keep the nose of the ship just above the re-entry burn.

Second, I live in an impoverished rural area and work with low-income families. I am curious about the values and practices that are common to my home. And, from study (thank you, Ruby Payne) and observation, I see that most of the "help" that is applied to my region is misguided and sometimes damaging. There's nothing like help that feels like a smack in the face or that makes no allowance for local conditions, desires. My favorite image for the help applied to Appalachian communities is butter spread on cold toast. It just don't soak in. Interventions must be guided from within, not smeared on from without. Low-income people will tell us what they need. Will we listen?

Third, I am aware of my own good fortune and assets. My mind is good. I went to college. I have people who care about me. I have enough--I can move to the next level, enhancement. At the same time, I am aware that I am about two months away from full-blown poverty if I lose my job, need expensive medicines, or add a child to my household.

Fourth, humans have always been explorers, and I hope to be part of that long tradition. As a writer of fiction and non-fiction, I see that each person is his or her own planet, developed in response to very specific conditions; and yet we are all part of a phenomenal spider web of connection and commonality. (Thanks, Darwin.) If you would cross a concert harp with a spider web, you'd get a sense of the concerto of interdependence I'm talking about.

So, exploring other person-worlds and community-worlds and walking in the moccasins, pumps, trainers, wing-tips, steel-toes, flip-flops, fluffy pink house shoes, and plain old bare feet of this world is my favorite hobby. And, might as well start at home, right here in poverty-stricken but incredibly rich Vinton County, Ohio. That's why I'm interested in the poor. That's why last week I attended an exercise called a poverty simulation, in which a group of non-destitute middle Americans did a guided role-play of being poor. If you ever get a chance to participate in one of these, please do it. You'll be richer for a better understanding of the poor.

About 60 people filled up the social hall of the Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Ohio, to do a sort of being-John-Malkovich slide into someone else's--a poor person's--skin. The edges of the room were lined with tables representing community entities--Job & Family Services, a bank, a daycare center, the Quicky Cash vendor, utilities, the mortgage banker, a school, a workplace, Community Action, the homeless shelter, and jail. Inside this ring of tables were chairs grouped into any number between one and six chairs.

The chairs represented families. Out in the waiting area, each attendee was given an identity card. When the doors were opened, participants searched around until they found their "home" and met their "family." Each family had a packet of information, telling them all about themselves--age, medical condition, mortgage/rent obligations, placement of children, employment status...a demographic souffle. To simulate the money spent on transportation, each family was given transportation vouchers that had to be spent at EVERY stop they made. Lots of play money floated around.

The facilitator (from the Ohio Association of Food Banks) announced that the simulation would last a month--a month of 15-minute weeks. She would blow a whistle to announce the beginning and ending of each week. If you went to school or work, you had to spend 7 minutes there each week before you could go about your business. During the month, the family was to keep itself fed and housed and serviced with utilities. Week 3 was summer break from school. (One woman lost her "job" because she couldn't find daycare for Week 3.)

The groups dug right in, sometimes talking right over the facilitator in their urgency to get a plan together, to somehow make sense of their new lives. What do we do first? How do we get baby Jill (a 50-year-old man with a full beard) to daycare? Should we go for food or for transportation first? While you go to work, I'll drop the boy off at school, pick up my unemployment check, and go pay the mortgage... Oh, their plans sounded so great, logical and clear.

Except. Meet me, Joy the mortgage banker, one of the "providers." We had packets, too, giving us a set of activities for each week in the simulation. I had a "closed" sign. I had warning notices. I could evict. The careful planning blew up when the line was long at the bank and by the time you got to my office, the "closed" sign was out and I was walking through the community handing out overdue warnings. When I got back to my place of business, I could see a participant eagerly pushing through the crush to get to me. Then the whistle blew. That's one week late on the mortgage.

The simulation was loud and pushy. Common courtesies vanished. Raised voices. Arguments over who was next in line at the bank. One of the saddest reactions I saw (several times) was tired resignation, like when I refused to take a housing voucher because they were no longer accepted after Week 2 of the month. There was no flexibility in the rules. My mortgage banker self developed more rapidly than I thought possible into a confrontive and snotty worker. By Week 4, I was (to my shame) flipping groups of chairs over with a grim glee--the signal for eviction. When the evicted participants came to me to ask what was happening, I found myself saying (with shockingly smug superiority), "You're homeless--the shelter is right down the street."

One participant started an argument over getting incorrect change at the Quick Cash place, with police involvement. The police, of course, sided with the business owner and off the cheated man went to jail. While this argument was diverting everyone's attention, another participant, without even thinking, cleaned out Quick Cash's cash drawer and tripped merrily over to me to pay the mortgage. Stealing really seemed like a rational act. The thief could feed and house her family. The man who sought traditional justice got screwed. In real-life, the thief is a respected member of the community who probably never even gets pulled over for speeding.

Several families in our group did not manage to feed their families. In fact, a couple of families had not managed to secure food for their families during the entire month. The facilitator worked her way down: who had managed to get food all four weeks; a decent number of hands went up. Three weeks out of four; a larger number of hands. Only two or one of the weeks; several hands up. No food; a smattering of hands. When the connection was made to children and families going without food for a significant amount of time each month, the whole group sobered up. This wasn't just a game about poor people--it was a regular experience for many of them.

These types of insights were happening all around the room. Even in the wrap-up, people were angry because the bank didn't have enough tellers. The simulation was still playing out inside them--the stress lasted.  It was a high blood pressure experience.

Some of my insights (these are not unique or special--most people in the group had these insights).

INSIGHT 1: Many of the behaviors associated with poor people, such as pushiness, hostility to authority, and not paying the bills on time, spring from the conditions of poverty, not from the personalities of poor people. Most of the "nice" people participating in the simulation rapidly developed these traits.

INSIGHT 2: Poor people do not have leisure time. They are our modern hunter-gatherers, always on the go, on the move, just to fill the most basic needs of their families. Poor people are either working or exhausted. Throw a parent-teacher conference into the mix and the whole structure of the week may collapse.

INSIGHT 3: Helping kids with homework (oh, those middle school "projects") and tending to your key relationships is something there is little time for. The participants I was with gasped when the facilitator asked whether they had interacted with their families in any way other than urgent problem solving. None of them had.

INSIGHT 4: A low-income or part-time job can be more of a liability than an asset--it greatly increases transportation and daycare costs and, given the structure of our business culture, may bar you from all of the activities that are only available from 8:00 to 5:00.


Conclusion and INSIGHT 5: Making assumptions is a human way to simplify the data each of us deals with in our lives--but assumptions make an ass out of u and mptions. Please add imagination to your assumptions--try on someone's dollar flip-flops and see how it feels. Sign up for a poverty simulation. Read any book by Ruby Payne. We can't afford to write off a whole group of people--any group. Put your "ass" in compassion instead of assumption.