Poverty: Misconceptions and Reality

There are misconceptions that abound that poverty is primarily the fault of the impoverished. Using a simplistic linear mindset one may sometimes be justified in drawing this myopic observation about the poor. There are different factors that contribute to poverty. The challenge on the table is how do we break the chain of generational poverty, and mitigate the maladies of those in situational poverty.
Several months ago my partner and I were invited to be members of the “Safety Net Summit Planning” board of Solano County. This board is overseen by the First 5 Solano Children’s and Family Commission (FFFC). April 27th we attended a symposium in Fairfield sponsored by United Way in concert with FFFC that was attended by many people from Solano County government who in some way affect positively or negatively the lot of the impoverished. The FFFC is a not for profit agency primarily funded by a $6 million dollar yearly grant from United Way. The mission of FFFC, headed up by Christina Arrostuto, is to reduce poverty in Solano County, by 50% in ten years primarily amongst families with children.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Donna Beegle, Phd, told a very inspiring story about how she ascended from a family of abject poverty. She shared with us her personal feelings about what being poor means and how one’s self esteem and personal perception in the community is perceived..Dr. Beegle was one of six children, who’s mother and grandmother was an itinerant cotton picker and who’s father, who was also unskilled scraped by doing odd jobs. Her brothers all suffered from learning disabilities, substance abuse addictions, and a history of incarceration At the age of 15, Dr. Beegle was a high school dropout, pregnant with her first child, without marketable skills who had to survive on $400 a month in welfare and food stamps. Skipping ahead in this story she worked to receive her GED, be accepted to the University of Portland, and ultimately receiving her doctorate in psychology. Dr. Beegle explained the differences in generational and situational poverty. Dr. Beegle is primarily the rare exception to upward mobility than the norm.
Poverty is a complex issue where factors of physical, emotional, environmental, and perceptions of one’s power, or lack thereof perpetuates, hopelessness and desperation. We live in an affluent developed nation where one in eight people nationally live below the poverty level. The poor have very few advocates relative to the wealthy and powerful. Most laws do not promote the interests of the poor. Someone who is poor in our materialistic narcissistic society is seen typically in the abstract, as an inanimate drag on society, who is an uncomfortable reminder that we are all our brothers’ keeper. We sometimes negatively stereotype the poor as a way of assuaging our guilt about having to take more responsibility for solving the problem of poverty.
Poverty does not only effect the poor, but more importantly society in general. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and more specifically the Head Start program was successful in reducing child poverty by 23%. In the next administration a societal malaise seemed to affect the electorate any many of these supportive anti-poverty programs were reduced or eliminated, but we had the money for B-52 bombers and thousands of tons of bombs that killed 2 million innocent Cambodian civilians.
Modern European nations are more humanistic and responsible in their views of dealing with poverty. Many people who are in poverty can be advanced out of this suffocating state of affairs by external forces in society if there is a genuine national will and priority to improve the lot of the poor.
My understanding is that generational poverty is where generations of families pass on an acculturated mindset that being impoverished is their prescribed destiny. Many people who are in generational poverty have distinct characteristics that mark them as outcasts in the general populace. For example their external dress, lack of etiquette, poor language skills, health challenges, eating habits, hopelessness, lack of financial skills, and little clear vision of exiting out of their predicament. There is a definite poverty mentality that needs to be broken with the help of external support from society. Many of us who own homes, have money set aside, investments, adequate food, transportation, and a clear plan for our lives cannot fully comprehend what it means to have to sleep in a car, or bounce from relative to friend, or not be able to afford a Costco card or enough money to buy at reduced prices by purchasing in bulk. Try having to move around the Bay Area without a car or adequate money for public transportation? If you have children, envision not having medical insurance and having to wait countless hours in clinic waiting rooms. Think about all the money you have to waste on check cashing services, money order costs, and shopping in local convenience stores because you do not have transportation to the local super market or discount store. Would your child want to attend school regularly, dressed in ragged dirty clothing, and be ostracized by their classmates for being less than? How do you feel when you are in the company of wealthy people, even though you are reasonably comfortable; well a poor persons feels the same way in the company of a working person who has steady financial health?
Out of desperation many of the generational poor self medicate their emotional pain with illicit drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. As a society do we take a proactive role to try to mitigate these diseases that unfortunately are viewed as crimes? The US has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. The poor have a much greater chance of being incarcerated than those that are affluent. Many of the people in prison are there as a result of system that deals with drug abuse in a punitive way instead of first using a medical solution. The financial resources used for predominately punitive reasons could be better used to work proactively with many of the poor, who out of hopelessness and desperation become substance abusers.
During economic recessions and with more jobs being outsourced, more and more people are falling into situational poverty. Situational poverty can be caused by being under employed and not being eligible for any or little public assistance. Those without adequate medical insurance, who are unable to work and have no other safety net fall into situational poverty.
Those in continual or prolonged situational poverty have a much greater chance of continuing in poverty because they become conditioned to have no hope. Ironically those poor who come from other countries, and most specifically third world nations perceive a myth about the US that our streets are paved with gold; ergo they have tremendous hope and optimism of exiting out of poverty. Unfortunately those US nationals have lost most hope.
The following is the most recent data on poverty in Solano County:
• The poverty threshold level is $18,310 for a family of four
• High school graduation rate was 75% in 2008-9; in CA it was 79%.
• 34% could not afford adequate food.
• 18% of families with children under 18 live in poverty.
• 21% of children 0-5 were living in poverty (many do not live in families)
• Unemployment is 12% (probably a low figure).
• Approximately 4,000 foreclosures
There are stories of families with children losing the homes in foreclosure, one or both parents lose their jobs, they have to sleep in their car or a cheap one room motel, the children are ostracized in school for being homeless, do not have a comfortable place to do their homework, and have to put their few belongings into mini-storage.
There is something very wrong in a population that sees its way clear to spend over a trillion dollars a year on defense, give tax cuts to the top 1% who many times will invest their money abroad for a higher return, subsidize major corporations, oil and agribusiness. Corporate profits were up 81% over the previous year, the income divide is it at its greatest since the Great Depression. Poverty is a major cost not just to those impoverished, but a loss/cost of over $500 billion per year to our nation as a whole. With all these misallocated resources in this country, how in good conscience can we blame poverty on the lot of the poor?