PEP, January 2007: The persistence of poverty

By JANE LaTOUR

The staggering wealth on display in New York City during the holiday season is evidence of the vast abundance that surrounds its most privileged citizens. Donald Trump takes over the FAO Schwartz toy store for a party for his daughter. Tabloids trumpet the sheer excess of multi-million-dollar bonuses for Goldman Sachs bond traders.

But at the same time, millions of people are struggling to make ends meet — and many fail.
Last January, PEP started a series on the city’s poverty fighters, the DC 37 members who face the harsh and complicated realities of working to help the homeless and the hungry. City workers help put food on the tables of 1.1 million New Yorkers who need food stamps to feed their families. They set a record in November 2005, caring for more than 32,000 people living in the city’s homeless shelters.

We interviewed Taylor Branch, the award-winning author of three books on the civil rights movement, and asked him what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had to say on the subject. He quoted Dr. King: “God never meant for some to be wealthy while others live in abject, deadening poverty.”

Since the Bush administration came into office Jan. 20, 2001, more people have fallen below the poverty line and their lives have gotten harder. While Bush bestowed huge tax breaks on those with the highest incomes, he hit the poor and the working poor with cutbacks in housing, Medicaid, health care and education programs.

Despite the talk of a “strong economy,” unemployment, low wages, part-time work and job exports have expanded the army of “surplus labor” — people struggling to find a job that pays a living wage and includes benefits. In November, the prospect of a job that paid $10.75 an hour with benefits drew 5,000 to 6,000 people to Times Square to apply for the 200 positions opening up at the new M&M store.

National problem
This problem isn’t confined to New York City. Last year, the oldest soup kitchen in San Francisco fed 1 million people. Across the country, it’s not just the homeless who show up for free meals, but also the working poor who can’t afford to pay for both food and rent. Out in the nation’s heartland, 39 percent of workers in Northeastern Minnesota earn less than $10 an hour and one-third of the residents of Duluth, Minn., are among the working poor. In South Dakota, more than 27,000 children live in poverty and 18,000 have no health insurance coverage.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated a commitment to finding solutions that go beyond answering immediate needs and attempt to create some pathways to progress. He has established a commission to come up with new programs to attack the roots of poverty. One innovative program for a longer-term solution is developing housing for the homeless instead of just providing temporary shelter.

In the 2007 continuation of our series, PEP will interview the DC 37 members who are planning this program and examine the work of the commission. We’ll also work to profile DC 37 poverty fighters in programs that alleviate poverty — such as job training, public assistance and medical care — and help coping with calamities like looming evictions.

As DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts pointed out, “Even as our members fight poverty on the frontlines and help others to cope with clients’ personal disasters of every sort, they themselves are struggling to keep afloat and survive.” Witness the eloquent testimony of Local 1549 member Lorrene Devon. A food stamp worker, she wrote to describe her own efforts to make ends meet on a daily basis. She said, “I read the article about ‘Poverty Fighters.’ Well, I am one of them. But my own ends never meet my needs.”

The series will focus on the economic realities of some of our own members who struggle daily to survive. The Daily News reported in early December that roughly 8,000 city employees — approximately 3 percent — rely on food stamps to feed themselves and their families.