Spent: play the game

CitySquare team members worked with well over 50,000 different people during 2012.

The vast majority of these neighbors are not homeless.  Rather, they are people who work, but who don't earn enough to make ends meet, or they are children, disabled and/or elderly.

The challenges facing these individuals and families define our work and our mission.

During 2013, we've set an audacious goal for ourselves:  to move at least one person onto the road out of poverty or to see a person move above the poverty line every day during the year.  For a family of four success will mean the ability to earn more than $23,050 annually or $1,921 per month.  For a single individual the goal is to earn more than $11,170 a year or $931 monthly.

The benchmark of success for us is objective.  Still, there are a couple of matters that we must keep in mind as we venture out into the new year.

First, earning $1 above the dividing line doesn't really mean that a person is not facing the challenges of poverty any longer!  But $1 above the line is real progress for a family currently earning less than $20,000 per year, which is true of a sizable portion of the inner city population in Dallas.

Second, we must work hard to capture the stories and the data necessary to document success in our rather ambitious goal:  1 person every day above the poverty line during 2013.  But, we are willing to do the work to document the progress and to evaluate our effectiveness.

Most of us have no understanding of the day-to-day realities that poverty delivers to thousands and thousands of our neighbors in a city like Dallas.

To get a sense of the difficulty factor try playing a game of "SPENT" by clicking here.

The poverty trap. . .

One of our organizational goals is to move toward the day, as quickly as possible, when the minimum wage inside Central Dallas Ministries is a "living wage." 

But, what exactly does that mean in real dollars? 

Often, in such discussions, people will throw out a range of $12-$15 an hour. 

John Greenan, Executive Director of the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation, sent me a link to what follows as it appeared on Aaron M. Renn's provocative blog, Urbanophile. 

Poverty is complicated when you are living in its midst.  Poverty is awfully hard to escape, harder than the vast majority of Americans can even begin to understand. 

What follows should give us great pause.

Megan Cottrell: Don’t Fall in the Poverty Trap – You May Never Get Out

[ Megan Cottrell's One Story Up blog might be one of the most important in the United States. It is certainly a must-read for anyone in Chicago. She covers housing and poverty, two un-glamorous subjects that have all but been abandoned by newspapers. These aren't topics beloved of urbanist blogs either, but they are critical to understanding our cities and building successful lives for all citizens. As Megan notes, the phenomenon she describes affects up to 40% of all Chicagoans. I encourage you to check out her work. ]

Until you earn about $40,000 a year, you’re pretty much stuck in poverty, an economist’s numbers show.

In fact, until you get past $40,000 a year, any raise or higher paying job you get might actually sink you deeper into poverty.

Take a look at this story from economist Jeff Liebman, who now works in the Obama Administration.

The poverty trap is still very much a reality in the U.S.

A woman called me out of the blue last week and told me her self-sufficiency counselor had suggested she get in touch with me. She had moved from a $25,000 a year job to a $35,000 a year job, and suddenly she couldn’t make ends meet any more. I told her I didn’t know what I could do for her, but agreed to meet with her. She showed me all her pay stubs, etc. She really did come out behind by several hundred dollars a month. She lost free health insurance and instead had to pay $230 a month for her employer-provided health insurance. Her rent associated with her section 8 voucher went up by 30% of the income gain (which is the rule). She lost the ($280 a month) subsidized child care voucher she had for after-school care for her child. She lost around $1600 a year of the EITC. She paid payroll tax on the additional income. Finally, the new job was in Boston, and she lived in a suburb. So now she has $300 a month of additional gas and parking charges. She asked me if she should go back to earning $25,000.

To continue reading and to view a very revealing graph, click here.

Knowing poverty

Over the past 16 years, I've been involved in hundreds of conver-sations with people who don't enjoy the benefit of many material resources.  In other words, my friends don't have much money, have never had much money and most likely most will not have much money throughout their lives.

Pretty obvious, huh? 

"Poor" people don't have money. 

Money aside, poor folks share many things in common with people who do enjoy the benefits, privilege and power that money supplies. 

Poor people like books, movies, art, music, performance and various expressions of culture.

Poor people aspire to decent housing that also provides the reasonable benefit of being affordable, as in using up only a fair proportion of their available finances.  Poor folks appreciate nice things and this is especially true when it comes to housing stock.  Many with whom I've talked across the years also appreciate perservation.  They dream of and are excited when restoration of their properties takes place. 

Poor people care about the education of their children.  Like parents with material resources, most all of my lower income friends want to see their chiildren experience more and better than they have when it comes to formal education. 

Poor people wonder and worry about their health and their health care options.  They express real concerns for the health and well-being of their children. 

Poor people desire good food and good food choices, even though most of the time they don't enjoy the option to choose the most beneficial dietary selections either due to proximity or economic factors. 

Poor people face challenges when it comes to transportation.  Just like the rest of us, they need to move from point A to point B on a regular basis.  They appreciate reliable options.  At times, most of the time, they don't enjoy such options.  Public transportation in Dallas is a real resource, but it remains underdeveloped in many parts of the city.  And, the stories I could tell you about poor folks and old, worn out, broke down cars!

Poor people appreciate nice clothes and various expressions of fashion.  Again, they just can't afford to make the same choices as those of us with money. 

Poor people would love to land better jobs, but many cannot due to a lack prerequisite training and education.  Deficiencies like this can be traced back to the limitations imposed by the realities of poverty, not to mention the systemic injustices at work in our educational institutions and funding mechanisms supporting both the education process and potential students. 

In short, I've learned that if poor folks are different from me, most of the differences relate to differences in opportunity and choice, usually connected to some sort of built in advantage or privilege. 

Sure, I've made fairly good use of all of my advantages and privileges.  But I forget the real benefits of my privilege to my own peril when it comes to understanding my friends and their families who must deal with poverty as a central part of their lives.