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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Are you broke but hiding it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wherever you look, poverty and homelessness and near homelessness in Gwinnett County look surprisingly a lot like you.
Many Americans take counterfeit comfort in thinking of the poor as having almost exclusively black or brown faces. Or they think people are poor because they dropped out of high school, have chronic substance or alcohol abuse problems, are mentally or emotionally unstable or are simply irresponsible and idle people.
But the reality is the face of poverty in America – including Gwinnett – can be one of any color. Moreover, many struggling with destitution have college educations or military training, are not on drugs or booze, are as sane as the next man or woman and strive to be responsible and contributing members of society.
Many of the poor and near poor are indistinguishable from us. They are economically fragile people with middle class veneers. Often they’ve had a run of ‘bad luck’ that depleted their savings. Many have lost their homes due to foreclosure or are no longer credit worthy. And without any savings, a stable home, and good credit it is very difficult to rejoin the middle class.
Last spring while volunteering at senior facility I met a well-scrubbed and bright-faced nurse who was among the newly poor.
She was the substitute for the usual program nurse who was away for an extended time. She quickly fell into the programs routine and everyone instantly liked her. Participants, care givers, and staff felt both confident and at ease with her.
A few weeks into her position, she told us that she had a crisis. Her tenuous existence was threatened because she needed to pay for car repairs and rent at the extended-stay hotel in Gwinnett where she and her son lived.
She wanted to know if someone could put them up for a few days, until she received her next weekly paycheck.
She relied upon her car to get to nursing assignments and without it she would be unable to support herself and her son. Paying for the car repairs meant that she could not afford the entire weekly rent at the hotel.
If she had not revealed her predicament we would have never suspected she was economically insecure. She is, after all, a registered nurse. She is self-assured, articulate, punctual and strives to please her employer.
This woman does not use dope and cannot be called slothful. She appears to be emotionally stable considering her unstable life. Her poverty is the result of a failed marriage in a city far away from family and friends who might be able to offer her emotional and economic support while she makes the transition from being part of a two-income household to a struggling single mom.
She looks like you and me.
She easily blends into any work or social setting without anyone knowing that she wrestles to have shelter, food, appropriate clothing, safe and reliable transportation, and, most of all, human dignity.
And before you judge this woman, keep in mind that most of us are only one failed marriage, one layoff, or one health crisis away from being just like her: A person who looks, sounds, and acts middle class but who is battling - and mostly losing - a war against chronic poverty.
Are you financially poor with a middle class veneer? Do you know someone who appears middle class, but is fighting poverty?
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