Stories from Poverty

I have been under the impression that the goal of one of my programs is to remove some of the barriers to mainstream financial institutions so families can build assets. It is also to re-engaged those who may have accounts but don't know how to use them to build assets. People who are in poverty (both situational and generational) nearly all fall into these two categories. These are who programs like mine have targeted in other cities and been successful with.

I sent the marketing team some Pew research and 2 other case studies of un-banked and under-banked people in markets that also did programs like ours. The audience is women, often with young children, 20-35 year old, new Americans (some people call them immigrants), minorities, and people who live in densely populated areas. We can point to the neighborhoods on GIS census maps.

My envisioned target population fits squarely in the disengaged people focus of VISTA work. The suburbs doesn't even show up on the maps of where our disengaged populations live.

I knew there was an underlying middle-class ethnocentrism but I chalked it up to the those involved being removed from the realities of poverty. It isn't that they don't care, they do care a whole lot, but they don't have the language to even talk about the situation. The new marketing plan is like something out of The Ugly American.

Here is another true story of what it is like in poverty, one from this evening.

I had a drs appt today. I'm lucky enough to have insurance, but I don't really understand how it works. I'm really fearful that if I go to the doctor for a follow-up it won't be covered because the insurance only covers 1 doctor visit a year. To pay my co-pay, of all $5, I had to break out my parking quarters and change purse. I got strange looks from the receptionist, but I paid it and I don't have to be afraid of being short $5 in my bank account.

Then I had to go to HyVee to fill a prescription and ran into a friend of mine from the Getting Ahead class - a current Circle Leader. While I waited for my prescription, we were looking at treats she could take to an event her daughter was involved in at St. Lukes. She was going to have to use her food assistance credits to pay for it. She is about 3 months pregnant. She was borderline diabetic before the pregnancy [the link between poverty and disease, ESPECIALLY diabetes is very very strong - stronger than race and disease], but because of the pregnancy she is  now full-on diabetic. We were looking at the sugar free options and comparing unit prices. Sugar free treats are far more expensive. We weren't comparing unit prices on half-gallons of ice cream, it was unit prices of the more expensive but single-serving options. She could buy 5 seventy-five cent 3 oz cups-the cheapest minimum amount-instead of the $2 more for a far more economic purchase. But she wasn't going to spend the extra $2. In addition to this joke of unit price "savings", diabetes now puts an extra burden on monthly finances. So does the pregnancy. She can get pre-natal medical care before the baby is born, she can get WIC after the baby is born, but the diabetes and its exponential corresponding costs and pressures on her financial situation are eternally playing out in the grocery store line.

Life in poverty is a melee of negative situations. For Teresa it is  negotiating parenting responsibilities, social concerns [what would people think if she said she couldn't contribute to the community center's event that her daughter has been involved in for several months - she would lose social prestige- one of her few assets] budgeting her minimum nutritional food assistance credits, pregnancy, and a new frightening health concern.

But my friend, Teresa, is left out of the new program's picture of prosperity. I breaks my heart.

In another note, this is the same Black woman who has been used as an example of the success of another program about the mom who started out in a Getting Ahead class with her kids in foster-care. Now  she is trying to go back to school, and has had her kids returned to her. I think her goal of getting a job when she is 3 months pregnant is unlikely because she would have to tell the employer she will need a few weeks off come November.

My co-worker Jodi is also expecting in November. It is amazing how different Teresa and Jodi's pregnancies will be.