Note: This was written a few weeks ago, and I just haven't gotten around to editing/posting it. So if you're confused about the timeline, that is why.
Now that we are well into our AmeriCorps service term, which started in September and ends in July, we have only been having monthly meetings. In the beginning, we had them most weeks, but starting in November, we have just had them once a month. In the spring we start doing group service projects in the afternoon, and just meeting in the morning these times. Monday was our December meeting, and the afternoon was the annual Poverty Simulation. "What is a Poverty Simulation?" you may ask. Well, obviously it is where you simulate poverty. Yes, I'm sure you are still very unclear, so I will explain in further detail and tell you about my experience yesterday.
First everyone signs in, and gets their new identity for the afternoon. All of the IMAC (Intermountain AmeriCorps) members participated in the simulation, along with many people from the community including the Pateros Superintendent, teachers from the area, nearby high school students, social workers, and other community members that heard about the event. Some people participated in the simulation, and then people that had participated before, were set up as different agencies around the room. There was a banker, a store, an employer, a school, department of social and health services, doctors, realtors, utility companies, community action council, a pawn shop, and even a police station. We were then placed in family groups, and given information on our families. There were a wide variety of families represented in the simulation, and some people were even working alone for the activity. Also in the packets for each family, there were all of our supplies including any money and belongings we might have. The simulation took place in four 15 minute increments, and each increment represented a week. Altogether, we simulated one month in poverty in a variety of situations. At the end of the simulation, we talked about all of the different situations we were put in, since most of us were focused on our own families during the simulation, and did not have time to think about what other families were going through.
My identity in the simulation was Emily Eppelman (I think they chose the Emily part on purpose...It made things less confusing for me at least). I was 34 years old, and a single mother. My husband had just left our family mysteriously, and I had been left with a 14 year old daughter and a 17 year old son. I did not have a job, and hadn't since I was 17, and my husband left us with only $10, and no information about bank accounts or anything. The only belongings we had were some furniture, stereo, television, refrigerator, and oven, and two transportation passes, which we had to use to go from place to place around the room. During the first 15 minute week, I quickly went to the social services station to apply for benefits including food and cash assistance. Since I have food benefits in real life since AmeriCorps only provides a living stipend, I at least knew a little bit about this process. I was still a little unclear about all of the benefits that were available to me. I told my case worker about my situation, and that I would need as much assistance as possible. I was able to receive both cash and food assistance for my family in this way. Each week went by very quickly, and we would never quite have enough time to get everything done.
During the 15 minute weeks, my daughter would go to school, so I wouldn't really see her. This represented well, how children living in poverty can often be neglected at home. For one week of the simulation, school was closed, so my daughter Ellen just had to stay at home for this time. I found out later that she had tried to get jobs at various places, but was not able to because of her age. I was so busy with other things, that I didn't even realize she was doing this during the simulation. My 17 year old son is a whole other story. He had already dropped out of school, and had started to deal drugs. He ended up working alongside the "robber" who was part of the simulation, and got himself in jail. I was able to bail him out, but he continued to get himself into trouble. Unfortunately, I had to encourage him in a way because it was one of the only ways for our family to get money quickly. My son Ed had also gotten a teenage girl pregnant in one of the other families in the simulation. This was made a little comical because this teenage girl was played by one of the guys in our AmeriCorps group. The way that I would encourage Ed during the simulation, was one of the parts that I did not feel was realistic. If this had actually been my son, I would not have been encouraging him to deal drugs or steal from other family's homes. But it is hard to know. If things are desperate, it is difficult to know what some parents might do. After my son had been put in jail the second time, I finally encouraged him to get his act together by getting a job so he could help support our family, and his new baby (Oh yeah, the baby was delivered at the end of the simulation). That made things exciting.
When I started to realize how immoral all of the stealing and drug-dealing was for my son, I thought a better way to get some quick cash would be to go to the pawn shop. During the second or third week, my son took some of our possessions that we did not think were essential to the pawn shop, while I got us our food for the week. Meanwhile at the pawn shop, my son was being accused of stealing some of these items. While it wasn't a crazy accusation, given his reputation, he had not stolen the items. The police officer was trying to take these things away from us! Although we had no receipts or anything for the items, since my husband had just taken off on us, the officer finally believed that we actually owned the items. She did say that my 17 year old son was too young to be selling things to the pawn shop, so I went with him back to the shop. But! by the time we got back to the pawn shop, the worker had already bought too many of those items. This was quite frustrating because earlier the pawn broker was ready to give my son the money for the items. So we were back at phase one, trying to find a way to pay our rent and utilities so they would not be shut off. Around the 4th week, I was finally able to sell some furniture to the pawn shop so I could at least pay part of our utility bill. During the simulation, if we were ever in danger of losing our house, electricity, or of not feeding our family adequately, we would get a notice from the designated service. I was never able to pay back a loan I had throughout the simulation, but this was way down on my list of priorities.
Food was one thing during the simulation that I did not have to worry about, since we were provided with food benefits each month. There was one week though, that I did not have time to get the groceries. I was in line for the store, when the bell rang to signify the end of that week. If this was real life though, the amount of food that i was would getting with the food stamps, would probably not be adequate for my family. I was just barely able to pay rent for the month. Although the cash assistance only gave our family $292 dollars for the month and rent was $300, another family donated $8 to us, which was very nice. I'll also mention the fact that this was after the robber had tried to steal this woman's paycheck for our family. Somehow we became the poor people that Robin Hood was giving to. Except...the robber was stealing from the poor AND giving to the poor, rather than stealing from the RICH and giving to the poor. Oh well...It somehow got us that extra $8. Then we were able to just scrape by for our utilities for the month with our extra money from the pawn shop, and then probably some money my son had stolen from somewhere. Oh dear. We also had to buy additional transportation passes through the simulation. Although they were only a dollar each, each service in the town needed them, and it would quickly waste time to stand in line to buy additional passes. There were just so many things working against us.
By the end of the simulation, the family with the daughter who got impregnated by my son, had been evicted from their home. After talking to the father of this family (who was actually a woman...so that was confusing) we decided that a good solution would be for them to move in with us and help pay our utilities and rent. This would also help us become one big happy family, since we would share a grandchild anyway. Things got pretty dramatic right at the end of the simulation, since my son got arrested for the umpteenth time, and Barbara (the pregnant one) was also in jail. Somehow they were both out of jail at the end. Not sure how that happened. Barbara also somehow had her baby. While in jail? Maybe? We did get a certificate that represented the grandchild though, so that was nice.
Things were starting to look up at the end of the simulation (other than the fact that my son had just escaped from jail somehow). He had actually applied for a job, and was going to start the next week. I finally found time at the end of the simulation to get a job application as well, but they weren't accepting it until the next week. I was also doubtful that I would be able to get a job, since I hadn't had one since I got pregnant at 17. I worked as a salesclerk, so maybe I would have been able to get something with that little experience. I was able to pay all of the necessary bills so we could stay in our house without the electricity and gas turned off. Our phone was turned off, but I felt okay about that. Without a job though, the next month would have been just as bad. The family that moved in with us did offer to pay for some of the utilities though, so there's one upside. Throughout the game, families were also given cards that were a "luck of the draw." These things could be good or bad, and were just everyday things that could happen to any family. Luckily, we were not given any bad cards. We got one that gave us some free food, and one that helped us with part of our utilities, I think. I'm not sure about the utility one since I was already pretty stressed out at that point. I may have even forgotten about it when I went to pay my bill.
Overall, the experience was very stressful, which I am sure is what a lot of people in poverty feel on a daily basis. I also felt like there was never enough time to accomplish everything I wanted to in a day or week or month. By the end of the month, it felt like I was just back where I was when I started. It seems like most people in poverty would need some sort of extra boost to get them out of that hole. If they just keep living on the bare minimum month after month, nothing will ever change for them. Although there are a lot of resources for them in the community, there is just not enough. People that are well off need to realize that these people in their communities are struggling. There are many different ways to contribute including donation of time and money. When people are able, they should try to give back as much as possible. This is something that I have realized through AmeriCorps, as well as through this poverty simulation.
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