Low-Income Lifestyle

After I got sick and could no longer work, my kids and I were able to hold onto our home for several years with home equity loans and, I’m ashamed to say, credit cards. At last in 2005, by the grace of God (location was an issue, as was the finished basement which had flooded, causing mold issues which were expensive to address) I was able to sell our home.

We landed in low-income apartments because, thanks be to God, I receive disability benefits. I had on and off through the years remembered to pray for homeless people, but had forgotten completely about the problems of people who are trying to raise kids and stay sane on minimum wage. I realized right away that I was going to have to get to know our neighbors, a mix of Hispanic, African-American and ‘poor white trash,” as my family had been called when I was a child.

I had to WORK HARD at not judging: the foster mother who put a toddler on a chair on the balcony so he could cry for his mommy outside; the teenage boys I saw break into an apartment; the black teen who had been a star basketball player in high school until he blew-out a knee, dropped out and paid forward his anger at the world; the Hispanic young man who spit at my feet whenever he saw me; the man in his 20s who chased me with his huge truck as I walked Max, revving his engine because (I think) I’d said “Hello,” when I passed him in the hallway, apparently interrupting his conversation; single mothers who yank their children around by their arms, have them carry out garbage bags taller than they are, or leave their older children at home for days with very little food, or don’t take their kids to the doctor because they have no way to pay for the appointment.

I was blessed by my former employer to keep our health insurance at the rate I paid, but I have struggled anyway to pay the premiums, the co-payments, and for the medications. Doctors are not in the business of treating people who can’t pay. If they treat one who can’t pay, one will expand to five, and five to ten and on and on. I ask myself both questions, Why should they, how can doctors treat people who can’t pay? and, What are people who can’t pay for medical care supposed to do? It’s no wonder the problems of our current health-care system are so difficult to solve.

But hardest of all for me here is the teen girl and her gang who hate my daughter and call her “ho” and “f—king bitch,” and threaten her every time they see her if I’m not present. If I’m present, the girl threatens me.

On my bad (feeling hostile) days, when I walk Max, I pray this mantra: I shall not judge any of God’s children, for all our precious in His eyes. I shall not judge any of God’s children, for all are precious in His eyes. I smile and, as warmly as I can, say good morning or hello. Maybe because my family was ‘poor white trash’ I understand on some level, or maybe because I have gotten to know some of the people who live here, or maybe because of the prayers, my willingness to tolerate differences has grown. I have grown. Nobody wants to live life full of rage, feeling cheated by life, dreams unfulfilled, lonely beyond measure, desperate for food for their kids, or abusing their children as they were abused. They have taught me: We would all do better if we could.

Social services, the police, churches and non-profits do the best they can with limited resources and training that has not prepared them, for the most part, for the depth of the problems people like my neighbors have. So, what are we to do that makes a difference?

Practice compassion. Kindness melts the barriers of race, sexual-identity, disability, gender, and the uneducated-no-status lifestyle walls. President Obama, speaking recently at the NAACP said, about touring the neighborhoods of the poverty-stricken, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I’ve thought that a hundred times since we moved here, that and more, because now that so many people have lost their jobs and have become homeless, I am struck by the depth of my gratitude for this small apartment, that we have a roof over our heads and food to eat. Tent-communities have formed near homeless shelters and the ministries who serve them. It is heart-breaking.

And yet, the only way out, or is it up?, is to feel grateful for what we do have, to give thanks to the Force that animates us so we can tune into that frequency, the source of love and of loving solutions. We have to believe change is possible and be willing to follow through with what is presented to us. I know how hard it is—I do. I didn’t even consider college because I thought I wasn’t smart enough or good enough to go. I pray things will be different for this generation of poverty-stricken young people. I hope for a future where most successful people realize, “There but for the grace of God, go I,” and extend a hand-up, the know-how, the inspiration and the love, to be God’s representative and to make meaningful differences in the lives of others.

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