Discouragement…despair…shame…guilt…fear.
These were some of the overwhelming feelings from living in poverty experienced by 58 people Thursday during a Poverty Simulation workshop. Sponsored by the Traverse Bay Poverty Reduction Initiative's Social Attitudes group, the event was held at the Bayview Wesleyan Church.
Assigned identities and divided into families, participants spent a "month” in poverty — really four weeks of 10 minutes each. In that time, they had to manage their lives as either an adult, child or senior citizen.
Most identities included barriers to their effectiveness, from poor schooling, hunger, crime and drugs for youth to illness, unemployment, single parenthood, wayward children and managing too many bills on too little money for adults. Senior citizens grappled with barriers to transportation, disabilities, accessing resources, crime and low income.
The participants had to complete assigned tasks that went with their character, including the daily chores of life: buying food, going to school, paying bills and getting around town using complicated or scarce transportation vouchers.
Compounding these activities were visits typical to a life below the poverty line: the welfare office, a pawn shop for cash, the community food pantry, the employment office and a check cashing service. Not to mention pleading for help from utility companies or with the bank for patience when money was short. Many had to choose between paying bills and eating, sometimes because there was not enough time to accomplish both.
Each business or agency in "town” had lines, other frustrated people and, acting out their own assigned roles, cranky or disdainful workers who did not always help.
"We were stressed and frustrated and it was only one hour, a simulation,” said J. R. Duval, an eighth grade student from Leeland Schools. "It's hard to think about people who are living like this.”
Duval was one of four eighth grade boys who participated in the seminar, brought along by his mother, Barb, who works with the Michigan State University Extension in Leelanau County. Staff for regional Extension offices presented the workshop.
For the students, two of whom portrayed an elderly couple while the others played delinquent younger children, the workshop hammered home real-life lessons.
"It's really stressful to be poor and homeless and struggling to pay to get by,” said Paul Bardenhagen, whose character stole a gun and robbed a bank with his buddy.
Throughout the exercise, it became apparent that the cards were stacked against the characters ever managing to transcend or even survive their poverty.
"Of 23 families, 7 were on their way to foreclosure and homelessness,” summarized Ginny Girard, a family nutrition program assistant with the Grand Traverse County MSU extension who played the Food-a-Rama grocery store.
"Of 23 families, only four the first week came for food and six the second week,” she added. "They waited until the end of the month so there's no planning for a week at a time, not dividing up either their food stamps or their budget.”
Many times the choice to wait in one line meant other needs went unfulfilled, mimicking real-life trade-offs of time and resources.
"Others who had nothing didn't come to me, they were sitting in the welfare line or looking for a job,” said MarySue Feldman, the volunteer coordinator at the Disability Network who ran the Life's Fare Community Food Pantry. "It was kind of harder to give away stuff than I expected, I still had funds available.”
Some participants found that their character gave up after so many obstacles and lived into the behaviors other people expected of them.
"I recognized how quickly I was frustrated,” said Mary Van Valin of Traverse City. "There was a sense that the system is not treating me well, why should I follow any rule.”
For more information about the Poverty Reduction Initiative, see their web site at www.traversebaypri.org.