Ahh....life in a 12x60. Ever done it? No shame in it, of course. I'm sorta a snob, I spent most of my teen years, after my parents divorced, in a 24x60. A comparative mansion. In Tampa, rent has come down to $180 a week and up, from about $220 a week last year for such an abode, add in extra electric for the lack of insulation and its "home sweet trailer". Seems the Recession has hit the slumlords too: no maintenance man at the park anymore.
Meet my wife's daughter, a married mom who has 3 kids under 7. If she worked, at minimum wage she might be able to pay for daycare + car + insurance. Her husband is jobless 7 weeks, due to a bout with the flu.
They have 3 kids: 11 months, 2 years, 6 years. We make sure the kids want for no material necessities, diapers & formula are expensive. Thank God KidCare Medicaid is free. But it gets much, much better.
His job was not held open when he missed three days of tree-trimming for a sub of the local utility seven weeks ago. Stay home, tough it out or spend 8-10 hours, while sick at both ends, in the emergency room? (The daughter calls it their "crappy health insurance"). No unemployment, of course, as the company wrote "abandonment" on the state unemployment form. They had no phone at the time to even call in, none now to set up appeal. Florida closed all local unemployment offices to save money & the Tallahassee phone number is reportedly busy 24/7. No internet, no unemployment appeals. Not that $9.00/hr. with three kids got them much when he DID work. Of course no adult in this trailer has any health care, so when you get sick, no doctor is handy to fax in an excuse for you. The company had no dearth of applicants. The foremen of these crews are bugged by their less well off/laid off friends daily for a job.
Their truck's been repossessed by the Payday loan company's lending arm. There is always the vaunted Tampa bus system that runs, well mostly sometimes, to places with jobs. Nearest bus stop is 1 1/2 miles away. Glad the summer rains are about over in Tampa. See, they got up to over $800 in debt with Payday, despite never making anywhere near that in one week. Eventually, you take your whole check, a little child support money, borrow a hundred or so off friends and pay them off on Friday, so you can borrow again on Saturday. When it gets really bad, they send you next door to the loan office, who lends you $2000, since you've shown you can come up with as much as $800/weekly in cash. Rubes ripe for the pickin'.
Six or so months ago, while hubby was still working steady, we "loaned" them first+security on a detached townhouse. In August, they got two days late, lease terms increased monthly payment by $200 and 12 days later, became officially homeless (they also forfeited security). Some friends put them up in a bedroom, converted from a garage, in a house they were renting. All five of them. Five weeks, two families in a 4:1, one income and the inviting couple has a falling out; she leaves in a huff and is now living with them in the 12x60 mentioned above with HER 3 year old, sired by this "partner" of four years. Jerry Springer, eat your heart out!
She is pregnant. 4 months along.
(See, told you it got better!)
Lady ain't against work. Now that she has a free babysitter, my wife's daughter, she wants to get a job cleaning houses with local temp agency that is reported to be hiring. She had no legitimate I.D. to get a job-- now needed because otherwise the government thinks she might be here illegally, she has one heck of an accent...."heavy Southern redneck". Where is profiling when its needed? Friday, it took almost all day to get an I.D. and this put her back into "the system". Saturday police show up at the door & they arrested her for (get this!) lack of paying child support to former boyfriend who has custody of her 13 year old daughter. He has the kid because her ex-husband before that, was molesting the kid and because she didn't stop it the courts threw the Dad into prison & adjudged her an unfit mother. Even though she was separated from him at the time.
$400 bail. My son-in-law's prized 30 year old bass boat, he had cobbled together in better times over the last 4 years, went for bail for their friend. It was the last thing they had of ANY value.
Last week sometime the only $40/month cell phone all of them got to use for a whole month was turned off. They have no internet, cable or TV; when you don't watch the news, you don't learn about going all-digital, the need for converter boxes and such. Food stamps came Saturday. Thank god, because MY freezer is almost out...although I can buy more. I wonder how long $512 in groceries is going to last 3 adults and 4 kids? That's $17/day. Ever buy baby formula?
There are dozens of trailers in the park and everyone seems to have a story something akin to this or worse. Bad choices? Yep, you bet. But, as shown here, here and finally here, these recent Wall Street Journal articles show there are precious few ways a non-college grad can or will be able make it out of the growing underclass in America. There are dozens of parks like this within a 1-2 mile radius of theirs. Everyone rents by the week, who can afford a monthly first and last? Some ministry came up with the last two weeks they needed. They refuse to take anymore money from us. I couldn't support everyone anyway. Well, maybe I could....but we'd have to give up ALLLL the goodies ...the cable, Angie's list, the hi-speed broadband, the food for three dogs & the horse. We also average $200-$250/month in food payments to Haitian and Central American ex-students who have lived with us on scholarships over the years (Thank God for CAM, it is a great service). Some are now doing BETTER than her daughter. One is even displaying Republican-like political tendencies. I remind her of helping her get on HER feet a few years ago after going back home to Honduras. But I digress.
Welcome to the new under-class way of life. Its what happens when unemployment gets to 10% and is REALLY 20% if you count the ones who have given up, "retired early" or taken jobs way below their skill level. An ex-service buddy I just found on Facebook, a well-off tile contractor in good times, told me he had 100 people to compete against for a $9/hr. job two weeks ago. He's 56, wonder what his chances are at being hired? His most memorable comment that stuck with me: "You're probably one of those guys who still have retirement and such, aren't you?"
Circa 1965 or so, I vividly remember watching a documentary on TV about the poverty in Appalachia. I grew up in the suburbs of a great steel town, Youngstown, Ohio. My father, had a good union construction job. I was horrified at the conditions these images on TV showed them living in. Sorta like what my daughter-in-law is experiencing now, except they have indoor plumbing--sometimes. I remember one other thing, My Dad telling me something at the time, after we watched the TV show and walked outside into an almost Desperate Housewives-like neighborhood:
"Take a good look son", he said, "because the day when working people like us can live next to doctors, lawyers and contractors is going to be coming to an end soon. 'They' won't allow it to go on much longer. 'They' never do." I asked just who 'They' were? He said simply, "The people who have the money".
My Dad, bless his heart, is 85 today. Has two great pensions, social security, free supplementary health insurance, etc. I reminded him of that conversation recently and he thought about it for a minute and nodded his head.
Appalachia has NOT disappeared in modern America, its merely grown and now it encompasses big pockets in the suburbs. Like the inner cities, we've gotten much, much better at shielding ourselves from its existance, as I think we've dispersed it pretty evenly amongst ourselves. But high gated subdivision walls can't hide the signs as you pass them by on the main streets: "$99 moves you in", "No credit check", "Move in today". Today I have a window into this lifestyle that is far more vivid than that first color TV we owned showed me back in the mid-60's.
We probably all do, as more and more of us lose the American Dream.