Renée Davidson participated in a poverty simulation workshop on Tuesday, November 26 as part of Homeless and Hunger Awareness Week. Below is a first-hand account of her experience.
Fourteen of us have come to the Bend Community Center to spend a month in the “State of Poverty.” Some of us, myself included, have lived here before. For others, this poverty simulation workshop will offer a first peek into the life of the poor.
After a spaghetti dinner, we sit in chairs arranged in circles. Each circle represents a family. A manila folder on one of the chairs contains a description of that family’s financial and personal situation, varying amounts of cash, cards representing household items of value, plus a green transportation pass and a red ID card for each family member. During the simulated month of poverty, each family will pick at least one card from the “luck of the draw” pile.
The five pretend families range in size from two to six members. Some families have one or more working members and still qualify for government assistance. Others make too much to be eligible for assistance, but not enough to pay the rent. At least one person has drugs or alcohol-related problems. A Latino family with limited English skills has health problems related to pesticides from migrant farm work. Still others are elderly or have medical conditions.
My family is small – only two of us. I will be Gerald Guten, a 3-year-old boy with asthma problems. Sweet Pea Cole will play Gayle, my jobless 25 year old mother. We live in a run-down part of town with two broken windows that the landlord refuses to fix. We have neither a phone nor income, and we’re trying to pay off a loan for our furniture and stove.
We do have $20 in cash, as well as a refrigerator, camera, jewelry and television worth $100 each. And we have two transportation passes. We’ll each need one for every trip we take – to the grocery store, bank, pawn shop, state agencies, utility companies, school, etc. These passes represent the resources required to get from one place to another. Even walking takes time and energy.
Week One:
The whistle blows and we begin our first 15-minute week in this simulated month of poverty. According to our information packet, we can apply for TANF benefits, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. That’s the latest federal acronym for welfare.
We use our only two transportation passes to get to the Department of Human Services to apply for TANF benefits. Mom starts filling out the five-page form while I entertain myself with another 3-year old, Harvey Hanlow, who is played by 11-year-old Perris Clayssens. The form requests our names, social security numbers, birth dates, household budget, and much more. Neither of our mothers can complete the forms before their names are called, forcing them to reschedule their appointments. Another woman filling out paperwork receives a surprise visit by the local police. Her teenage son is in custody for bringing a gun to school. Seems he drew a bad luck card.
A second whistle ends the first week before mom can finish our paperwork. No benefits this week.
Week Two:
When the whistle blows, we realize we used all our transportation passes getting to the DHS office last week. We need to return there for benefits, but mom still hasn’t finished the paperwork. She is furiously filling out the form when I scream, “Mom, I’m hungry! I want McDonald’s!”
Mom is visibly shaken at the realization that we never got around to buying food last week. As it turns out, only a few families will buy food during the whole month. None will buy enough to actually feed their families. Without real hunger pains to remind us to eat, it’s easy to overlook the grocery store and food bank.
Mom gathers up the paperwork, our ID cards, valuable items and cash. We hurry to the Bank/ATM to purchase transportation passes. They’re $1 each, but we’re charged $2 each for the first two because we ran out. $12 buys us eight passes. The banker keeps the first two to represent our initial trip to the bank. We’re left with six transportation passes and $8.
Two green passes get us to Big Dave’s Pawn Shop. Here, we are offered $50 for our $100 television, but we owe $60 for furniture and a stove. After much pleading from mom, Big Dave agrees to let us wait until next week to pay off our loan.
We use two more transportation passes to go to the Food Pantry, where we get $35 worth of food. Bellies full, we head back to the ATM to purchase four more passes. Now we have $54 to our name.
We return to the DHS office with our paperwork just as the whistle sounds the end of the second week. We just wasted two transportation passes.
Week Three:
Bright and early Monday morning, a policeman takes me away because of child neglect. Mom hasn’t purchased the asthma medication I need, or taken me to the health clinic. They won’t release me until she brings a receipt for the medicine and makes an appointment for counseling.
While I stay in protective custody, Mom tries to pawn her ring. Big Dave already has lots of jewelry, so he won’t give her much money. He also won’t buy our refrigerator, as his bleeding heart won’t allow him to leave us without the means to store food.
Now the landlord is looking for mom because we haven’t paid the rent. At the end of the third week, our situation is looking desperate.
Week Four:
I don’t know what happened to mom. I haven’t seen her for a week. My friend Harvey joins me in protective custody after wandering into traffic while his mother was otherwise occupied. A grown-up played by local writer Michael Funke joins us after failing to appear in court for making an illegal U-turn. Eventually, one of his family members bails him out.
The landlord finally tracks down Mom, who tries, without success, to sell our furniture to the landlord. Our chairs are overturned to show that we have been evicted. Two other families have also lost their homes. At the month-end whistle, it feels as if a tornado has torn through the room, ripping apart families and scattering individual members. I am still in protective custody. Mom is still filling out forms.
Debrief:
After the simulated month, we share our reactions to the poverty simulation. Brad Hunter, who came to the simulation at the urging of a friend, laments, “I didn’t know it was so involved and so complicated to be poor. To work with agencies, they all require certain things. If you don’t have those things, you have to start over.” He says, “I picked up a little of the despair of not being independent, of not being able to pay your rent and feed your kids.”
One family ultimately ends the month with a roof over their heads and money left over. But they failed to report that their 17 year old daughter had gotten a job. That’s welfare fraud, a federal offense.
Other family members share stories of being charged a fee to cash their paychecks because they didn’t have bank accounts. Others talk about being evicted from their homes because they couldn’t produce a receipt for rent they paid. One participant says, “I felt used by people – at the bank, at the state agencies. I really felt the various places did not treat me very well.”
Paul Clayssens, father of Perris, admits that the simulation brought back memories of being a poor student. “Standing in line, rescheduling appointments, eventually losing it,” he remembers. “Do you look for work, apply for benefits, or go to the food pantry? There aren’t many jobs out there. Crime is starting to look pretty good. Or maybe selling my kid on the black market.”
My pretend mom, Sweet Pea Cole, explains her mixed emotions at having her child taken away. “If my sick 3-year-old is in custody, he’s getting food and medication. He’s safe. That allows me to go do what I need to do.”
Personally, I am struck by the amount of work involved in being poor. Just getting from the bank to the welfare office to the pawn shop to the utility company is time-consuming and expensive. In many cases, state agencies are located across town from one another, and public transportation is non-existent.
My life of simulated poverty stands in stark contrast to the stereotypical image of welfare recipients. We’re definitely not sitting around in front of the television, snacking on Doritos, reproducing like rabbits. We’re pounding the pavement every day, trying to find a way to make ends meet.
We’d like to live within our means. Unfortunately, our meager resources don’t even come close to meeting our basic needs – food and shelter – much less “luxury” items like medicine and child care. We have already cut every corner imaginable. Our only option is to increase our means – through a second job, public assistance, a life of crime, or perhaps “shacking up” with another wage earner.
Getting public assistance is more difficult than it seems. Transportation, language and literacy barriers deter some families enough that they give up altogether, abandoning the application process. In the simulation, five people made 23 appointments for public assistance, but only two families completed the TANF process. Those who did jump through all the hoops found their benefits still didn’t cover the basics.
This may be a safety net, but apparently, it’s full of holes.
