[Wyoming] Sheridan confronts poverty

from The Billings Gazette

By JUDY HAGEROTT
For The Gazette

SHERIDAN, Wyo. - Sheridan County is fast becoming a land of the "haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor," according to resource development consultant Sheila Schermetzler.

The Sheridan County Tripartite Board, which administers Community Service Block Grant Funds in the county, contracted with Schermetzler, who is based in Laramie, Wyo., to conduct a community-needs assessment on poverty. She shared her findings recently at the Sheridan Senior Center, at a meeting called A Dialogue on Poverty.

Schermetzler said the yearlong, $10,000 study focused on what's going on in the community and what the public can do to help alleviate poverty. "Sheridan does have poverty," she said.

Surveys were sent randomly to 250 people who live in the county, 500 low-income clients served by Community Service Block Grant agencies, 84 human-service agencies, and 15 Community Service Block Grant agencies. The return rate was 55 percent. The surveys were compiled according to city, town, area of residence and age groups. Every community in the county had respondents.

Schermetzler said she found it alarming that more than 5 percent of Sheridan County children live "in extreme poverty," with single mothers having the lowest income. More than 9 percent of the people living in the county live in poverty, and 21 percent do not have health insurance.

The median income for a family of four is slightly more than $53,000, while most single mothers in the county survive on less than $14,000 each year.

"More money will have to be dedicated to providing services to the poor," she said. "The middle class is disappearing."

Schermetzler said that in the past 30 years, the average earnings per job have fallen $5,000 - from slightly more than $28,000 a year in 1970 to $23,516 a year in 2000. The findings are a dollar-to-dollar comparison and do not take into account inflation over the 30-year period, she said.

"Even though the number of people working has increased and unemployment is decreasing, those people that are working are making significantly less than they did 30 years ago," she said. "The middle class is having difficulty making ends meet to the high cost of the standard of living.

"There's a strange dichotomy going on here. We have a group of the new rich and a group of the new poor. The middle group is disappearing. There is a wide disparity between the wealthy and the poor."

According to state figures, Sheridan County has the fifth-highest cost of living in Wyoming. Food is the highest cost compared to the other 23 counties, with clothing and medical care costs ranking second only to Jackson.

Schermetzler said two factors are exacerbating the impact of poverty in Sheridan County.

"Wealthy people are moving into the area who are willing to pay big money for real estate, driving up the cost of housing, and the aging population has more focus on retirement and less focus on building up business and economic development," she said.

Sheridan County has a 2 percent vacancy rate for housing and the average apartment rent is $504.

"As a community, we do not recognize how critical this segment that lives in poverty is and how large that segment is. It's sort of like 'out of sight, out of mind,' " board chairman Les Engelter said. "This study should raise the awareness of our community."

The nine-member board will now develop an action plan, hold a final public hearing and prepare a request for proposals for block-grant funding to be sent to the state.

"We now have to look at the priorities, redraw the lines and address the needs of the poor," Engelter said. "It's very difficult with only $130,000 in grant funding, and the needs are so much more in the community."