Poverty does not end at city limits

from South Coast Today com

In communities of plenty, many border on homelessness
By JOSEPH R. LaPlante

WAREHAM — Joann can't afford the rent.
After only two months in her drafty Onset cottage, she's moving out. And she worries that the $550 security deposit she put down is in jeopardy if the place isn't cleared of her furniture when she leaves.

Shortly after moving in, Joann realized she could not afford to stay in the asphalt-shingled cottage. She countered the cold blowing in through cracks in window frames and door jams by turning up the thermostat. The resulting $85 gas bill amounts to more than 10 percent of her monthly $800 Social Security check.

"When I first came, it looked pretty good, compared to the motels and some of the apartments," said Joann, 64, who asked that her last name not be used. "I thought I could make it. If I clear out all the furniture, I get the deposit back. I need that money."

For a growing number of SouthCoast residents, the margin between having a roof over their head and being out on the street can be as slim as Joann's $550, social service providers say. In towns that sprout "McMansions" like dandelions and lure wealthy, second-home buyers to exclusive seaside enclaves, thousands of others desperately struggle to survive.

The poor live in every city and town of Bristol and Plymouth counties. Ten percent of Bristol County's population, 52,236 people, lived below the poverty line in 2000, slightly higher than the statewide average of 9.3 percent. Plymouth County was higher at 13.3 percent.

From Wareham, where 10.7 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, to Westport, where 4.9 percent do, the poor in the SouthCoast suburbs are struggling anonymously in plain view. They work multiple, low-paying jobs — serving your coffee at the drive-through in the morning and sweeping up your crumbs at the pizza parlor at night. They survive by weaving together a network of social services: subsidized prescriptions, reduced school breakfasts and lunches for their children, meals taken at local soup kitchens, heating oil assistance, and furniture and clothes from charities.

America is getting poorer. In 2005, 13.3 percent of Americans lived in poverty, up from 12.4 percent in 1999, according to the census bureau. And 14 million of the nation's poor live outside the big cities. The poorest populations are children and the elderly, the bureau reports.

falling behind

The gradations of poverty in SouthCoast are marked by the types of housing the poor can afford, until they can afford nothing, said Lee MacDonald, director of Turning Point, which provides shelter and transitional housing and services to Wareham's poor.

"We have the homeless, the 'Woods People' (who live outdoors) and the near-homeless, the working poor," she said. "The near-homeless may be elderly and living in their own house but now they can't afford to; they are single people or families living in the mobile-home parks; they are single mothers and their kids living in motels and paying $200 a week."

That final situation is the last step to the point of no return.
"Once they start at a motel and pay $200 a week, there will be no way they come up with money for an apartment," Mrs. MacDonald said. "If they can get the first month's rent, we can get them the security deposit, then they have a chance, but they really have to work."

But, finding an apartment with an affordable rent?
"If you work for minimum wage, you have to work 119 hours a week to afford a minimum rent," Mrs. MacDonald said.

A one-bedroom apartment in Wareham costs $1,000 a month; a two-bedroom costs $1,200 or more, Mrs. MacDonald said.

The people seeking help now at Turning Point and similar agencies would not have been seen in these financial straits 15 years ago, Mrs. MacDonald said: "CEOs and bank managers come in. Something happened (to them). It is a shame."

And, their numbers are increasing, evidenced by the 71 people that Turning Point helped in January alone, Mrs. MacDonald said.

'two lost souls'

Among those seeking help are Joann and a woman she met at the town's Senior Citizens Center. Joann and Sandy, 56, have more in common than a budding friendship. Both handicapped, they are now roommates, with Joann moving in with Sandy last week. Still, they face homelessness next month because the house they live in is being sold.

Until mid-April, at least, they will live in a house owned by Sandy's stepfather. But he plans to sell it this spring, and he wants them out.

They are trying to get a loan to buy a used mobile home in a local trailer park, but raising the down payment of $3,000 is an obstacle; that is what brought them to Turning Point. They plan to put down $1,000 ($500 apiece) as earnest money with the seller of the trailer. Sandy receives $1,100 a month in Social Security Disability Insurance.

Sitting inside the Turning Point office at The Church of the Nazarene on Rogers Road, a camaraderie is obvious in a joking, self-deprecating exchange.

"We are two lost souls," Joann said in mock self-pity.
"Speak for yourself," Sandy retorted.
Joann chuckled and pointed to the walker with an oxygen tank attached that Sandy uses.
"Watch it. I'll pull your plug," Joann said.
Sandy laughed. "We get along very well."
But the spectre of homelessness looms and darkens Sandy's mood momentarily.
"What do you do with someone like me?" she asked.

'hard slide'

The two women have been running into barriers for years.
In August 2000, Joann had the first of two heart attacks while working her shift at Dunkin' Donuts. She sometimes worked 70 hours a week in that job and another at a pizza restaurant to take home $400. A pair of strokes followed, leaving her physically unable to work. She moved to Wareham from an apartment in Brockton because her partner abused her, she said.

Sandy, who also asked for anonymity, was a social service provider in the Worcester area after earning a master's degree in the field when she was diagnosed with pulmonary disease, making it difficult for her to walk. The strain of the disease took its toll on her marriage, which ended in divorce. In a short period of time, she was felled by, in order, respiratory failure, breast cancer and a heart attack. Now she's attached to an oxygen tube 24 hours a day.

"I had a very good job and benefits and, the next thing I know, I am over the cliff," she said.
Sandy sold the 3,000-square-foot log cabin she owned in the woods of Worcester County, sharing the proceeds with her two children. She moved into the Wareham house owned by her stepfather and mother four years ago. Her mother died two years ago and her stepfather moved to Florida.

"It is a hard slide," Sandy said. "I keep breaking through one level of poverty to the next. You start out in the middle class. You get sick. You have to be disabled for a year to get benefits. You go through your unemployment, so you find a couple of jobs in your field that pay less than you used to make because you don't have the stamina, physical or mental, to do your old job. And then you end up in the hospital three or four times in the winter."

She recited her plunge through the economy calmly, matter-of-factly.
"I had to apply for Social Security. That takes a few months, and that puts you behind the eight ball. You can't afford your lifestyle anymore. You have debts and obligations from when you were earning more."

not just a city problem

Poverty knows no boundaries, said Bruce Morell, executive director of director of People Acting in Community Endeavors, an anti-poverty agency in New Bedford.
PACE serves Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Acushnet, Rochester, Marion and Mattapoisett, as well as New Bedford, where the 2005 census reported 20 percent of the population living in poverty.

"The closer you get into New Bedford the more you will find pockets of poverty," Mr. Morell said. "The town line doesn't change that."
"Most of the families in the towns have the same problems as those in the city, except they pay more for housing in the towns than they do in the city — the rents are higher out there," he said.

Another difference between urban and suburban poor families is their age.
"A lot of the poor in the outlying smaller towns (Westport, Marion, Rochester and Mattapoisett) are elderly," Mr. Morell said. "A lot of them live in their own houses that they bought a long time ago. They are often in the situation where they have equity in their homes, but they don't have much cash."

Being poor in a small town in SouthCoast adds an extra worry: the lack of transportation.
"The biggest difference (for the poor) between living in the city and the small towns is the lack of transportation," Mr. Morell said. "Public transportation isn't available in the suburbs, if that is what you want to call them."

The lack of transportation limits the accessibility of poor families to services, Mr. Morell said.

need alongside wealth

Mrs. MacDonald retired four years ago from the MBTA, where she originally drove a bus, then worked as a collector.

"I saw terrible things in the job," she said. "People used to come in to use the washrooms because they were homeless; families on the street. When I retired, I wanted to help."

And she settled into SouthCoast, the fastest growing region of the state. But that rising tide of growth doesn't necessarily lift all boats.
"People don't realize the need is so great down here," she said. "I think people have blinders on."

Along with those fortunate enough to buy a home and peace of mind in a beautiful place, there are many others, like Joann, hanging on tenuously to a place warm and dry, and maybe safe.

Joann found helpers from her church to move the furniture, but that $550, which will be her share of the deposit on the trailer, is in jeopardy: The wall on the stairway got smudged by her box spring, and her landlord may keep the money to make the repair.