For many, poverty has gravity

from The Journal and Courier Online

Assistance available for those trying to escape its clutches

By DAN SHAW
dshaw@journalandcourier.com

Although LaVeta Franze has a job, she considers herself among the poor.

The money she makes working as a teacher's aide at the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy doesn't pay for the expenses that come with being the mother of the three children and a student attending classes at Ivy Tech Community College, she said Tuesday.

To pay her bills, she gets food stamps, has her children on Medicaid and pays subsidized rent.

"I still wouldn't trade the job for anything because they do work around my school schedule," said Franze, who had also taken classes at the resource academy.

Several directors of local charities said the bulk of Tippecanoe County residents living in poverty are similar to Franze.

Like the national poverty rate, the rate for Tippecanoe County appears to have dipped slightly between 2005 and 2006. But considered over the past six years, it's a different story.

In 2000, 20,567 Tippecanoe County residents, or 15.4 percent of the population, lived in poverty, according to the U.S. Census bureau. In 2006, the number was 24,272, or 17.3 percent of the population.

The poverty level is the official measure used to decide eligibility for federal health, housing, nutrition and child care benefits. It differs by family size and makeup. For a family of four with two children, for example, the poverty level is $20,444.

Beth Davila, assistant director of the resource academy, said many people who come to the academy to learn new skills or obtain a general education diploma usually find a job easily.

But jobs they take tend to place them among the "working poor."

"People are going into entry-level positions," she said.

In the past school year, 172 unemployed people and 592 employed took classes at the resource academy, she said. Of those, most had or later got jobs in service industries, becoming day care workers, janitors, construction workers, employees at fast-food restaurants or members of a hotel staff.

The work seldom pays enough to support a family, Davila said.

"It is not often that people at (the resource academy) leave public assistance," she said.

Ann Miller, owner of Adecco, a placement service in Lafayette, said finding temporary jobs isn't more difficult now than in years past. The growth of poverty in Tippecanoe County shouldn't be attributed to a lack of opportunities.

"Anyone who wants to find work is finding work in Lafayette," she said.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate stood at 3.1 percent in July 2000. In July 2007, it was 4.1 percent.

Jennifer Layton, executive director of Lafayette Transitional Housing, said it's a common notion that the poor move to Tippecanoe County because the welfare services here are generous.

Yet in her dealings with those who stay with transitional housing -- which lodges homeless people until they gain a means of supporting themselves -- she finds that most came here to stay with friends or family.

"And something doesn't work out," she said. "Not very often do we see people who come here to live in a shelter."

Ed Eiler, superintendent of the Lafayette School Corp., attributed the rising rate of poverty in part to the abundance of inexpensive homes in Tippecanoe County.

"Whether they are moving in from bigger cities or from the rural communities, people are going to gravitate toward where there is housing that they can afford," he said.

Rising along with the rate of poverty in the county has been the number of subsidized meals served at Lafayette School Corp. schools.

In 2000, 27.9 percent of the 7,405 students at the schools ate free lunches. In 2006, it was 40.1 percent of the 7,469 Lafayette students.

Eiler said providing the free lunches costs the schools little, since they are paid for by the federal government. Yet he said that students who take them generally perform worse on standardized tests than others. And the schools pay for special services meant to improve those students' scores.

James Taylor, executive director of the United Way of Greater Lafayette, said the growth of the working poor is likely a result of the welfare reforms adopted under the Clinton administration, which seem to be succeeding at forcing more people off the dole and into work.

Yet, Taylor said, many now employed find themselves faced with a dilemma: Should they take a job that gives them more if their doing so makes them lose certain social services?

"It's a punishment for people doing what society wants people to do."