Let Justice Roll

Poverty exercise shows struggle to live with less
By Ashley Cox
Gainesville Times (GA), 9/27/07

Pay bills. Buy groceries. Make loan payments. Keep your kids in school. Handle unexpected emergencies. And do it all on less than $18,000 a year.

Seem impossible?

This is the challenge faced every day by the many families in Hall County who live below the poverty line.

To help illustrate what low-income families go through just to make ends meet, United Way of Hall County has planned a poverty simulation titled "Welcome to the State of Poverty" from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday.

"I think it will be a real eye-opener for some people," said Carol Williams, United Way's senior vice president for community impact. "You just don't ever know who is on that edge."

During the simulation, participants will be placed into one of 26 family scenarios. It could be anything from a family of five with a 2-year-old and a teenager to a 60-year-old with Alzheimer's.

The "families" will face several challenges, from keeping food on the table to paying for doctor's visits, over the course of four 15-minute "weeks." They must do it on less than $18,000 a year for a family of four.

Williams said Hall County's housing wage, or the amount a full-time worker must earn to afford a two-bedroom house, is $14.50 an hour. The current minimum wage is $5.75 an hour.

Even if two people in a family are working two minimum wage jobs, they still wouldn't be able to afford a two-bedroom home.

Williams said most of the time these families are able to survive on what little they earn. That changes if a child has to go to the hospital, if their car's transmission goes out or if they lose their job and health benefits.

"These things ... can throw a family that is ordinarily making it work into crisis mode," she said.

Phillippa Lewis Moss, director of the Gainesville/Hall County Community Service Center, has participated in poverty simulation exercises before.

To many, it's not a game.

"There are people in our community that struggle like that every day," Moss said.

She said such simulations sensitize administrators and members of the public as to the difficulties the average community member has in navigating the social service network.

Also, she said, through a poverty simulation, administrators can see what gaps exist in the system that make it difficult for people to receive the appropriate services they need.

Hall County resident Mark Walls said he wanted to participate in Wednesday's exercise to get a more tangible understanding of what families living in poverty in Hall County go through.

"I'm excited that we're bringing that to the people in Hall County who work with these families on a daily basis," he said.

When the simulation is over there will be a debriefing session for people to share their reactions.

Then officials will release their first annual Hall LIFE (Leading Indicators for Excellence) report, a public status report that takes a look at community-wide indicators where Hall County is doing well and where it needs to improve.

Contact: acox@gainesvilletimes.com, (770) 718-3426