Most of my adult life I've worked in the field of social work. That experience has been in child welfare, with an additional seven years as a manager in a large state public assistance office. In my current position I got a new assignment around the first of the year. The agency where I work received funding to address financial management with some of our clients. It's a new, and long overdue, trend in social work. My background lent to this assignment. But this week's offering isn't about my work, it's an opportunity to have you meet some of the people I've met and gotten to know as a result of this assignment. Please come along as I introduce to folks you probably wouldn't get a chance to meet otherwise.
My job is to educate, coach, instruct, or otherwise help our clients do a better job of handling their money, and hopefully guide them toward a more self-sufficient life. Of course, I can't use any real names- but I assure you the people and their circumstances are 100% real.
Let me introduce you to "Kathy". Kathy is in her late twenties, and has two children- ages nine and two. Kathy was raised in an abusive home with a a very impaired and addicted mother and two sisters who are now drug addicts. Kathy didn't finish high school. Kathy worked a few low-paying jobs in her early twenties. She got involved with an abusive mate who led her to alcoholism and drug abuse. He eventually became so violent that he seriously injured Kathy, causing her to be hospitalized and needing a surgically repaired jaw and later, spinal surgery. Needless to say Kathy doesn't possess many skills and was rendered somewhat unattractive with her displaced jaw.
Kathy's been involved with Child Protective Services for a long while due to her negligent parenting during the dark period described above. She regained custody of the two kids but requires constant counseling and intervention to help her and the children overcome the trauma in their lives. She still lives in constant pain from the neck injuries. Kathy doesn't get TANF (Welfare) money anymore. Our state finally enforced a five-year lifetime limit rule. The rule has been there for fifteen years-but the recession finally forced the state to use it in this budget crisis. She does get food stamp benefits and medical coverage. She lives on $200.00 a month (child support for one of the kids). She lives at the Salvation Army Housing Program. They only charge 30% of your cash income for rent. Trouble is she has to leave next month because those dark forces have returned. Constant physical pain and deep despair led her back to drinking and mental health problems again.
Next, meet "Jane". Jane is a very bright, articulate twenty-eight year old woman. Jane has her high school diploma and some post HS education. Jane has worked in the medical field for some time as a nurse's aid and held responsible jobs in hospitals. Jane fell head-over-heels in love with a young man who gave her two children. They are eight and three. Mr. Wonderful didn't turn out so well. He fell on hard times with his employment, then turned to drugs. He convinced Jane to join him on this path. She began using Cocaine with him to save the relationship. She lost her jobs- then he lost his temper. More drugs, more crime, and then violence. She got out with fewer injuries than Kathy, but the mere idea of seeing him can cause a panic. Along the way one of his friends sexually abused their daughter. Jane managed to get unemployment compensation, but it's less than two hundred bucks a week. Jane can't afford her own place with two kids because she wasn't lucky enough to find subsidized housing. She's on the waiting list for Section 8 Federal Housing Assistance, but it's going to be nine months to a year, if at all. (demand is higher than ever) She and the kids live with relatives in a small house. She is doing well in treatment and her eight-year-old daughter is getting treatment to help her deal with being raped. Jane has the skills to return to work, but this recession isn't good for job seekers- particularly ones who have other obligations like Jane does.
Please meet "Sally". You'd like Sally very much. She is highly personable- genuinely charming and engaging. She is outgoing and devoted to caring for her one year old baby. Sally is in her late thirties. She has other children who live out of town with their fathers. She came here to escape the life of drug abuse and violence she experienced in her home town. She stays in touch with the other kids and does her best to maintain a relationship with them. Sally helps other women in her group- and fiercely guards over the babies of other women. She has been free from heroin for well over a year now. However the legacy of that period is damage to her brain that prevents her from having a useful short term memory or completing many intellectual tasks. Sally lives on about $340.00 a month from TANF. She tried to make it in an apartment subsidized by the YMCA Housing Project, but couldn't manage it financially. She and her child are back in the shelter program again. She is planning to go to school in the fall with the help of federal Financial Aid programs, but schooling won't repair her brain; though she might get SSI because of the brain damage.
I could go on introducing you to people I meet- like "Dan and Jenny". This couple has a severely disabled child who needs both feeding tubes and breathing assistance (birth defects). The child is so medically fragile she must live in a specialized foster home.They both have jobs now. Dan is working part-time at McDonald's and Jenny's working one day a week at Wal-Mart. It took each of them five months to get those jobs. Having to drop everything to go to the hospital for the child's near death episodes jeopardizes their meager jobs. I also know "Sandy" who was raised in foster care herself, and is now trying to learn how to parent her child. She's never had a lasting, supportive, or stable relationship in her whole life, and just doesn't know how to parent, let alone cope with the complicated world we have to navigate.
As I say, I could go on with the introductions, but I just wanted you to meet some of the people I see almost daily. Anybody in my line of work could tell the same stories. I'm not asking you to make any judgements about how they each got to this place. Surely, a lot of these wounds are self-inflicted. They made mistakes, and some made bad choices. Some simply had bad luck, or trusted the wrong people, or were born to the wrong kind of parents themselves.
Making judgements is often the kind of thing that keeps these people down. We have a tendency to judge people not on what we know, or who they really are- but on assumptions about their value as people. There is old tradition in the Christian world (Calvinism) that says the poor are that way because God doesn't favor them. But I, for one, cannot know the pain and trauma some of these folks have suffered. I cannot know the huge barriers they face being born into poverty- poverty that, more often than not, is a self-fulfilling destiny for generations to come. But I'll tell what I have found. In getting to know these people and really hearing their story, I've found that I like them. In some ways I admire them. Can you imagine going from our relative comfort to having to live on $340 a month? Can you imagine knowing you can never buy that coffee drink, or know that buying a toy for your child is a major financial decision? I admire how they stretch a dollar in ways I never thought of- or the way they form their own networks to survive.
Our country is in trouble now. The Great Recession has reduced our 401K's and caused our homes to lose value. It has caused more unemployment and uncertainty in the future. At least Kathy, Sally, Dan and Jenny and the others don't have to sweat out uncertainty. Their whole lives have been a Great Recession, and it will probably be a Recession for them and their children as far as they can see; so there's little uncertainty for them. But as we debate our future we have to keep in mind that the poor are still there- that they are real people with real hopes, real heart-aches and real needs. They too want a better life for their kids, but they don't have the means to provide it. We've all heard the stories of those who have overcome lowly or disadvantaged beginnings, and we applaud them. But there are far more stories of those who will be trapped forever by the circumstances of their birth- or the those who have victimized them along the way.
The discussions of late have focused so much on the taxes on the rich and measuring our finances in trillions of dollars, that we tend to forget the poor. The middle class is shrinking not because more of us are joining the rich, but because more of us are joining the poor. The poor make a good target for anger and blame. But when we know their stories it's much easier to see them as people. From our RVs, boats, and lake cabins our view of them can be obscured. I'm just asking that we remember the poor are there-and there are many more of them than most of us realize. If we allow our leaders, or ourselves, to simply turn our heads from these people, we do so to our own detriment. It's not so important whether we see them through the eyes of scorn or pity- just that we see them.
Thanks for looking in.
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