Poverty is a full-time job

“It was overwhelming.”

“I have never been so tired in my whole life.”

These were some of the comments made after the Community Action Poverty Simulation held on May 20 at the First Christian Church in Maryville.

The simulation, from Missouri Association for Community Action out of Jefferson City, is designed to help people understand the realities of poverty.

Hosted by the Community Services Inc., approximately 40 Maryville residents and 20 volunteer staffers participated in the role-play.

The staffers were made up of people with real life experience facing poverty. Drawing from those experiences, staffers portrayed quick cash employees, pawnbrokers, mortgage, rent and utility collectors. Others role-played bankers, employers, grocery clerks, schoolteachers, childcare providers and Department of Family Services caseworkers. Their history of encounters with those agencies lent a substantial air of authenticity to their role-play.

As one staffer, Rose, expressed, “It’s really rough, and it’s a day-to-day living process for many of us.”

Poverty Scenarios

The participants were divided up into various scenarios of families facing poverty. Some families were newly unemployed after many years of stability, some were recently deserted by the main breadwinner and some were recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Others were senior citizen grandparents living on Social Security who found themselves raising their grandchildren.

The simulation covered a month in these people’s lives, broken down into 15-minute weeks. Each family had to decide how to navigate the crippling money crunch they were facing. They had to negotiate with old employers, DSF workers, pawnbrokers, banks, landlords and schools.

They had to figure out how to pay for transportation to and from the various agencies they needed to contact. They had to try and find time outside of their working hours, for the lucky few who still had employment, to get to these agencies before they closed.

Sometimes they needed to make decisions between prescription drugs for family members, or food.

And, they had to live with the consequences of their choices.

Keep records

One family decided to go the route of getting quick cash via a title loan. They made their payment, in cash, but didn’t get a receipt. The next time they showed up to make a payment, they were told there was no record of their previous payment. No amount of arguing, pleading, bluster or cajoling helped them. They didn’t have a receipt, period.

In the middle of this, an “illegal activities person,” or thief, roamed the environment. She entered homes while families were out and stole the money they’d left out in plain sight.

She preyed on teenagers, and talked them into the earning cash by doing drug deals for her.

Other children, lacking their medication, became disruptions in class.

Some families found, in a short period of time, their homes were foreclosed and they had nowhere to eat, shower or sleep.

End of their tether

The debrief, or comments after the simulation, were eye-opening as well.

A family who said, “we survived,” were met with the reality from the grocery store that, while they might have thought they survived, they’d only spent a grand total of $5 on food for the month.

Most agencies have a time limit between when a person applies for assistance and when they can receive it.

“There is a time lag. By the time they show up, they’re already in dire need,” a staffer explained. “When they get to one of our offices, they are hurting. They’re told their job has been eliminated, that’s a reality for many of us. It’s easy to see why people get upset.”

Department of Family Services staffers talked about being unable to hedge on the eligibility requirements. They’re down in black and white, without gray areas.

“There are hoops we have to jump through too. Sometimes we are just as frustrated with the system,” said another staffer.

Families facing the state of poverty deal with the pressures and difficulties of acquiring resources just to meet their basic needs; the emotional stresses that come with lack of sleep, lack of medication, lack of food. There is also the guilt that comes from being unable to provide their children with the medication they need. The children find their parents tired, frustrated and in some cases, unable to cope. They’re left to their own resources.

Bottom line, many people facing poverty today never expected to find themselves there. They are ambitious, they have dreams, hopes and accomplishments to build on.

Or, as Tammy West, employment and training director for Community Services, Inc. said so eloquently, “We are a community, they are us.”

By Karen Jones