Poverty simulation opens eyes for local officials, leaders

Month of poverty in an hour

A number of participants representing numerous businesses and agencies in Jefferson City took part in Wednesday's Poverty Simulation hosted by Central Missouri Community Action (CMCA) at N.H. Scheppers Community Room. After several breakout simulations, Evan Melkersen, a CMCA community organizer in Cooper and Howard counties, leads a discussion.
A number of participants representing numerous businesses and agencies in Jefferson City took part in Wednesday's Poverty Simulation hosted by Central Missouri Community Action (CMCA) at N.H. Scheppers Community Room. After several breakout simulations, Evan Melkersen, a CMCA community organizer in Cooper and Howard counties, leads a discussion.

In one month, Ann Aber, a 37-year-old mother of three, lost her job and was evicted. Her 16-year-old daughter became pregnant, and her computer programmer husband lost his job as well. Their daughter was taken into custody by protective services, but with the help of a friend, they were able to get her back.

All of this happened in less than an hour, and the 37-year-old woman was really a 62-year-old man who happens to be Greg White, sheriff of Cole County.

Other elected officials, department heads and community leaders assumed separate identities to live a month of poverty in one hour Wednesday afternoon at the Central Missouri Community Action Agency's (CMCA) poverty simulator.

"The poverty simulation was developed by the Missouri Association for Community Action," said Angela Hirsch, community services director for CMCA. "It was designed to give individuals a glimpse of what it might be like to live with a limited income in the state of Missouri."

The month was broken into four 12-minute weeks. Teams of four were assembled and each member assigned a family role - mother, father, grandparent or child. The teams had to provide for the basic needs of a family, paying utility bills, transportation fees, food costs, rent or mortgages.

The teams had limited time to pay bills or be evicted, have utilities cut or children taken away. Also, family members had time earmarked for school, jobs, running errands and bill payment.

Around the room were institutions to either help the families or make a profit from them, Hirsch said. There was a police department, medical center, pawn shop, pay day loan company, church, social service center, employer, school, head start center, a housing agency and utility company.

Families also faced the luck of the draw - a blessing like finding money on the side walk or breaking a window and losing money to pay for it.

By week three, nine of the families failed to eat. The simulation continued with the harsh reality of starvation. By the end, two families fared better than when they started. The rest were worse off.

"I see some frustrations, and I see some confusion, which is very very typical," Hirsch said. "People who have never experienced poverty firsthand don't really have a good understanding of living day-to-day and struggling to meet basic needs."

It was a good time for some in attendance. Many people laughed and joked at their situation, while others wore looks of anger and despair trying to get food or keep on the imaginary lights.

"I heard someone mention earlier that this is totally unrealistic. Maybe in her world it is," Hirsch said. "The families are based on actual families that community action centers across the state have actually worked with. So none of the family scenarios are made up, and the resources that they have at their disposal are actually what those families had."

Usually the event organizers select someone at random to use illegal activities to get ahead, but this time they decided against it. However, many attendees took it upon themselves to fill that role and either robbed other participants and institutions, or sold drugs to the others, there was even talk of human trafficking.

"Some people lost their integrity rapidly and were willing to steal or do other things to get money and some did not," White said. "That is true across the strata of society, But I think it was magnified very clearly today, which looks amazingly like situational ethics. As your situation changes do your ethics change? As for some people yes, and for others no."

The sheriff has lived in poverty before and worked in social services when he pastored for a church. He mentioned he has seen ethical people and criminals both rich and poor. He said real ethics do not have to change with circumstances.

City Councilman Carlos Graham played an unemployed mother living with her unemployed husband, their child and her father.

"It reinforced some of the things I already knew about how hard it is for some people," he said. "It also brought something to me as it relates to transportation. ... It was difficult for us to get around, living from day to day, paycheck to paycheck, and at times you find yourself robbing people or stealing to make ends meet."

Councilman Ken Hussey played the role of a 9-year-old boy whose family consisted of his father, older sister and her child. He said, as a child, he felt not being able to contribute by supplying income or running errands made him feel helpless and burdensome to his family.

"I think the three of us in our family, we strategized to do the right thing. Let's look at our bills, let's pay our bills, let's turn things in on time, let's do what we are supposed to do," Hussey said. "It was not enough to get by. We lost a job and we got robbed and ended up getting evicted at the end. So even when you set out to do the right thing, or what you perceive to be the right thing, you still can't quite make ends meet."

After the event, volunteer workers shared their stories of poverty and the group discussed what it was like play the game. One volunteer shared how she battled cancer, lost income because of medical leave and ended up in poverty but was able to work her way out of it with some help.

"I think the thing that became very obvious today is the system can do very good for you, but everything has to align just correctly for that to work," White said after the exercise.