The New Face of Poverty

An article from the Greensboro newspaper … worth the read:

They don’t look poor. Until they show you. There’s the refrigerator dotted with family pictures. Open it. It’s empty. The pantry: empty. Cupboards: empty. Under the sink: watered-down dishwasher detergent. In the bathroom: McDonald’s napkins for toilet paper.

The walls are bare, not by design but by choice, in case they need to leave quickly. Pull up a chair. You’re welcome to stay for dinner. As long as you like soup.

Poverty has a new face: families. In May, 13.9 million people were unemployed — more than at any other time on record — according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And with unemployment so high for so long, most economists predict it will take years before the country will fully recover. To say nothing of the American family. Since the recession hit in December 2007, they’ve been dropping out of the middle class in droves. And falling deeper into poverty.

At Mary’s House, a Greensboro shelter for women and children, staffers have heard something equally as heartbreaking: former donors asking for assistance. “You have always had the chronically poor, but this is as bad as I’ve ever seen,” says Craig Thomas, the passionate 62-year-old executive director. “These are people who never had to ask for help in their lives. Never. The adults I feel bad for ...” Thomas has to stop for a second. “The children haunt me. They’re innocent victims in all this.”

This is why our company focuses so much on helping the homeless, the people much less fortunate than most of us. They are not just the stereotype you may have in your minds. They are families, moms and dads and children. Lives changed in ways they never expected. And make no mistake … it could happen to many of us. These are difficult days and we are blessed if we are employed, safely housed and able to feed our families. There are so many that are on the edge or over it. I pray we keep them in mind, and help however we can.