“The poverty rate for U.S.
children is the highest in the
Western world.” Sociology:
Understanding and Changing
the Social World,
Brief Edition, v. 1.0′’

by Steven E. Barkan

Pat and I have gone from the 80 degree weather of Tampa to the 0 degree weather here at home. After church this morning we planned to go shopping for a few items we needed for Pat to make 10 lbs of meat loaf for the meal program tonight at our Church.

First, we drove a friend home and he mentioned he was down to a few dollars for food. Later he called to say he went to the church meal program and had a delicious meat loaf dinner. (It must have been the meat loaf Pat made which we also had for dinner.)

During Church I got a text from a friend who lives in poverty about a mutual friend. It turns out the house of our friend, 86 year old woman, had a fire and she was in hotel where the Red Cross put her up. She had to leave in a hurry and needed a few essential items. So I went to pick my friend and one of her daughters up to take them to a store to purchase some things. As we were driving down the street we noticed her other daughter with her two grandchildren and her boyfriend stranded in a car in the middle of road. It turns out that the gas line of car had broken. We drove her daughter’s friend to a local gas stations hoping the car would start and allow them to get home. It did not work so we ended up driving the four of them to her daughter’s house which was not nearby.

Finally we went to the big store, whose name you know and I cannot repeat, to purchase some stuff for our friends. When poor people go into a store like this, with everything, they see many things, which they really need, like diapers for a great grandchild. My friend and her daughter spent quite a bit in this store just to get some necessities of life for themselves and our friend. We stopped to get some fried chicken our friend and these two. My friend had not eaten for a day and she could not help but eat on the way to the motel where our friend had been placed.

At the store waiting for her daughter to purchase a few things my friend, who now works, told me how she feels she will never get out of debt, for past rent and for other bills like for heating. A long period of unemployment had taken its toll on her life. She lives with two teenage granddaughters and one great granddaughter.

When we finally got to our friend’s hotel home we found her in good spirits, despite losing everything and being told she could not go back to her home. Earlier when my friend had called her to see what else she needed. When she mentioned I was coming with her, our 86 year old friend said to tell Bob to bring her a rich husband.

This experience which took the whole afternoon taught me how the vicious cycle of poverty can trap you. If a car breaks down, a bus is very late on a cold day,house burns down or a lost job can throw you into a deeper and deeper cycle of poverty. There seems to be now way out and maybe there is not.

I read today in the Greenfield edition of the local paper how a 3.2 million dollar investment by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP)in building a thrift store in a white suburb would help the poor in the racially segregated neighborhoods of Milwaukee. There is no evidence of this and, in fact, the proponents of the suburban thrift store show a budget with a significant lost for years to come. St. Vincent de Paul Society is dedicated to “person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering…” By taking “money that belongs to the poor” according to Rule of the Society, and serving the rich and white SVDP is contributing to cycle of poverty.

Comments

Please send any comments on this post to . Let us know which day’s post your comments pertain to. If the comments are appropriate we will post them here for you.