Poverty 101: "Introduction to Poverty"

Introduction to Poverty

Ron Jensen

Executive Director
Life Initiatives, Inc

• Billy, who at $10 an hour is the wealthiest of us, lives in the trailer he owns, paying only the $400-a-month lot fee.

• The other white cook, Andy, lives on his dry-docked boat, which, as far as I can tell from his loving descriptions, can't be more than twenty feet long. He offers to take me out on it once it's repaired, but the offer comes with inquiries as to my marital status, so I do not follow up on it.

• Tina, another server, and her husband are paying $60 a night for a room in the Days Inn. This is because they have no car and the Days Inn is in walking distance of the Hearthside. When Marianne is tossed out of her trailer for subletting (which is against trailer park rules), she leaves her boyfriend and moves in with Tina and her husband.

Joan, who had fooled me with her numerous and tasteful outfits (hostesses wear their own clothes), lives in a van parked behind a shopping center at night and showers in Tina's motel room. The clothes are from thrift shops."

("Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting by in America" Ehrenreich, Barbara, 2008, Holt Publishing, p. 26)

It's impossible to effectively mentor someone without first truly stepping into their world. When I observed poverty from the perspective of a middle-class American, the temptation to judge was inescapable.

Barbara Ehrenreich, in so many ways, gave words to the emotions I felt after joining the ranks of the poor. No doubt, bad choices abound among the poor. And everyone has responsibility to make the best possible choices, the healthiest choices. But when you live in a world that is an endless highway of hurdles, survival is the goal. When you don't have the resources to have options, numbing yourself from the pain is understandable.

As you move through this series, you'll learn about tools that are available to help people improve their choices. But before we approach anyone with "the answers", it is so important that we truly empathize with the challenges they face.

You've just read the experience of a middle-class person who "dabbled" in poverty. But what is it like to be RAISED in poverty... to never know any other life? Next we'll move on to someone who can answer that question from her own experience, Donna Beegle. Poverty 102 is a video excerpt from her video biography, "Invisible Nation".

- Ron Jensen, Director

Life Initiatives, Inc

donna beegle

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Introduction to Poverty

Without a thorough, empathetic understanding of the life of someone in poverty, any assistance we offer will come with a heavy dose of condescension. Ron Jensen is Director and Co-President of Life Initiatives. Part of his journey into assisting the poor was to unintentionally become a low-wage member of the working poor.

But as he points out, his experience is situational poverty; circumstances have introduced him to poverty. Generational poverty is much more difficult to escape, because one who is experiencing generational poverty has never known any other life. They don't have the resources to move ahead.

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the
understanding poverty
series:

Understanding Poverty - Trying to understand a place we've never experienced.

SHE'S BEEN THERE- Feel the struggles of poverty with someone who's been there: DR. DONNA BEEGLE - "Invisible Nation"

HIDDEN RULES -Every cultural group has rules, but few people realize it. DR. RUBY PAYNE demonstrates it.. with humor.