Faces of Poverty: Life at the Breaking Point

This way I usually stop almost daily to get gas or something to eat and what I call my Superman Red Bull juice which doesn't help on a daily basis. Also, I know it's not good for you, but it's okay, we're up early. I don't have time to stay home and enjoy a good home-cooked meal, so thanks to YY I get it on the go, I stop here for about five ten minutes, something eats me and then I leave and continue. Back on track, we have the latest statistics from the US Census Bureau that give us a very specific measure of how poor the city of Redding is compared to the rest of the country and we have the unfortunate distinction of being named the poorest city in the country.

In any city of 65,000 inhabitants or more, the most important thing has been the loss of jobs. I think the most devastating was when AT&T, when Lucent Industries closed their offices and as you read, there were over 700 people who were laid off and lost their jobs, I think. Today, it is a daily struggle for residents of the city of Redding to survive, pay for basic needs, access the health care they need, put food on the table, and care for their children. I don't know which one it is. The answer is: I mean, I think the dilemma is how are we going to get jobs back for people and that has to happen soon because people have no hope and if you grow up without hope then you're just not going to be able to. give up and then another generation will come and then it will become more and more difficult and it will become more ingrained.

My name is Glen Kegger Eyes, I am 46 years old and I live in Reading Pennsylvania. I live here with my daughter Kelsey, she is 16 years old. I lived here. Basically my whole

life

I was in the Marine Corps for four years and then I came back. I went to REM with Plastics and started as a machine operator and worked my way up there and was a supervisor for 13 or 14 years. The pay was not great but it's consistent and my wife was working at the same time so between the two of us we made it, we had a decent living and before you know it, he lost his job and my sister had worked, that loosens and she lost her job. everyone lost their jobs and you know that for a while everyone was supported by unemployment and things like that, but I mean it will probably equal those almost two years, little by little, you know that expenses do not change, your income changes, but you' The Bills don't change, yeah, I guess the things above for Packer know if it's one of them, you want out.

Well my wife, a nice blue, moved in with my brother, but now my brother is sick and in Florida because he lives with his son, he pays the regular bills, but the mortgage was never touched because there just wasn't that kind of money to go around. do it, so basically I'm taking advantage of the house until it's taken from me, the house is already in foreclosure, yell my kids, if they don't come with a box, everything is stacked in one room so we can move it closer to the front door and easy access to get out in case I don't have much help when I have to go, so keep bringing it in to get it all together, get it out of here so we can move whatever we have to wherever we go.

I still don't know, without my family I would be on the street, now I know. that everyone works their whole lives and it was hard to see things fall apart as they tried to help each other but don't always have the means to do so when we look at the problems facing the city of Redding we are able to look at some of the fundamental causes that result in high

poverty

and one of the most important is education. The Reading School District alone has a graduation rate of about 68 percent, so it's a high number: 32 percent of children starting kindergarten in the Reading School District.

In the end we won't graduate from the district, we have a lot of kids that are now following in the footsteps of adults and don't even have a high school degree, so that's clearly a challenge in something that needs to be addressed long term. I grew up here. and running and getting off drugs for maybe two years, after graduating from any high school, I got my GED from our office Career Center. I thought I was going to be in college. I was always safe for kids who wanted to go to college, but I wasn't there. 't - I always wanted to be running around him I had my son I had myself at 15 so they are crushed all my sleep go read your book Spanish rice with chicken um baked chicken those were the leftovers from last night so I understood that and I think in the expenses because I didn't check well, you have to check when I grew up here.

I was always on the streets running when I was a kid, yes, but I saw a lot of things happen here, a lot of bad things. Things happen in some way, they affected a lot of people, they did the same things and I didn't want to do the same things, I didn't want to continue or for my children to see that or for me to do what I have done. I had friends with parents on drugs and I had friends with parents who are in prison for

life

with my friends they ended up in foster care and I haven't seen them in years today I started Walmart I'm going to make twenty hours as a cashier and for now it's only seasonal , which the manager said, "If I do a good job, they usually keep you for almost anything it depends.

I was customer service at Lowe's for four mini years. I thought you said you weren't going to do it." and it's 7:53 so you actually have two minutes on the day I left Lowe's. I had to leave because my son was having a seizure at school, so I almost got fired for always being sick. My son takes about four medications a day. Another son was just diagnosed with ADHD so he was always being kicked out to be taken care of so I hope they are okay now I can keep a job. Mero, hopefully, Manuel is seven years old and last year four, when I worked at Lowe's I had health insurance for a while. but then I told them to stop it because it was a hundred dollars from my salary.

I can warm up the hundred dollars I could have used for something else. I got paid ten sixty five at Lowe's and now at Walmart I'm making eight twenty. It's a big difference, but I have to adapt to it because it's only two months to find a job, so I can't just not take it because of the salary. It's better than nothing right now. It's 357 a.m. m. on Friday morning. I started working in London. About a month and a half ago, about an hour and 15 minutes, that's about 74 miles each way to get to where I work, from Reading to Phillipsburg, New Jersey, so I'm talking almost three hours a day outside of my day driving any kind of ready place that offers me what I have now, all the benefits and the rate I am earning.

I've looked around but haven't seen anything, so unfortunately this is what I'm doing. that's what it comes down to making the sacrifice and coming here I was in Iraq for about a year and a half almost almost a year and a half it's something that completely changes your entire life it changes your perspective of your everyday life are you living? It makes you feel like you can't, there's nothing you can't do. Coming back, trying to adjust was, honestly, a horrible situation. My first experience when I came back was, I went to this company. I was in an interview.

Everything was going great. Your first question. for me it was what I've done and I proudly told him, you know, I just got back from Iraq after serving my country for about a year and a half and he just looked at me completely and said everything you've done The fact that That being out there doing what I did wasn't enough for anyone here made me feel pretty worthless. Oh, I guess what we expect from reading is the number of really good-hearted families who are really trying hard despite the incredible difficulties of parenting. children who care about each other who are respectful the people who come here saying you know we don't just want to receive a handout we want to rebuild our lives we want to be the complete people we want to be and that even they want more for their children they really want their children to grow up to to be able to make a contribution and have a worthwhile life and they don't want to see them trapped in a cycle of

poverty

.

I just got a job after two years of being unemployed and then no unemployment at Mack Truck, unfortunately it was the second shift and the second shift is from 3:00 to 11:00, I usually leave at 1:30 because First of all, if you're late, you get fired, so you can't be late. It takes me an hour to get there an hour to get back you have to do what I have to do now the time has passed when I can be picky and demanding I have to get some money so my daughter can have food when he was unemployed he was here all the time never was without something to do unloaded food for the food pantry worked at the food pantry and I know that you know that Glen and Kelsey are greatly supplementing their food with the food that they can get here I think I think my faith me has held.

I just couldn't have not dealt with all the things that were there, my separation and the loss of my job and my depression and seeing my family have a lot of problems and I didn't. I don't think I could have gotten through this without God and his guidance, not just the pastor you know, Hope Glen's family are truly amazing people, first of all, they wear their faith on their sleeve. Which is really beautiful to see that he's been a real leader here, he was also our youth guru here and now that he's working second shift he can't do any of the things that used to give meaning to his life and really allowed him to do it. contributing was a little bit better because he was always home and we always worked together um it was harder because we didn't have money um so that's the kind of tradeoff we had to make, I guess from then until now that's Why do you know that Am I here trying to make sure Kelsey is taken care of?

Because you know this is killing him having to work the second shift. Did you know that they have a very good bond? Know? A close bond, but right now she understands it. she understands that it's what they have to do just to get a job, you know he has to have a job to support her so like she said it's kind of a trade off so it's not always an easy pill to swallow. I get to see her for a few minutes on Friday night and basically that's my existence with my daughter because she goes to visit her mom usually on Sunday after church she goes there and on Saturday she has band competitions.

I've said it numerous times lately at my age I never imagined life would be as difficult as it is now, we were always raised to do the right thing, you know, be responsible for yourself, even get health insurance, and I know that none of my brothers, all three, did not have any health insurance when you. You are alone and trying to pay for health insurance and you are only earning unemployment. It's almost impossible to pay your bills and have that since I left REM Khan I just don't get sick or if I do, you know, I leave. to the over the counter stuff, just take some Tylenol, yeah you know, do what you can, even if people work multiple times, there are no benefits, they're putting together two or three part time jobs just to make ends meet of month.

And so they get by without any medical care, so there are a lot of health problems. There are no free clinics in the city. There is one in the surrounding county, but Ready's people have no way to get there. Right now I'm basically living day to day, there are a lot of tensions that the county is funding right now around daycare. If I didn't have that it would be about fifty dollars a week it all depends on the size of your family and right now we pay five dollars a week that's important because if they take it away from us we'll have an eight month waiting list so if we get a job and we need our child and take care of him as soon as possible and that's not there, we can lose our job because I don't have childcare, the only bill right now is rent.

I couldn't afford it when I got my 401k. I gave them money, but right now I don't know what my paychecks will look like at this job. I wonder how I'm going to pay for it. I'm actually trying to work out a deal with my landlord so they don't evict me, at least not now, at least wait until after the holidays. It's not good to think like that because I don't want to. to be evicted but I'm going to have to do it, it's difficult, I do the best I can, especially thanks to the support of my family and friends.

I've been able to keep him if he gets evicted from here, um, my sister-in-law. I already told myself that I can live with her, but where she lives I don't want to live and that's not a good area, there are always shootings and fights, it's just a mess, there's a lot of drug activity down there, I guess sometimes it's emotional because I wish I didn't live here I wish I had a better son I wish I could give my children a better life hmm and without money you can't leave so if you don't have a job here and you can't get the money to leave all my friends most of them have a their parents the children's father with them still some of them are like me they are dead the parents are in jail I want to go back to school and I want the highest What I want to do is be a registered nurse, but I know it's hard, so that I want to stay in shape, take small steps like being a medical assistant and then once I get there, I mean, I just wantto be able to get ahead.

I really worry about the children. especially because there is a kind of lack of hope. I think here in Redding there are a lot of programs that are trying to address that and are providing job training but the jobs just aren't available, on top of that we have a lot of people that may be employed but they are employed in temporary jobs that don't pay very much. good wages and they don't pay very good benefits, so we have the situation where the types of jobs that city residents are prepared for unfortunately our low paying jobs here in Redding that wasn't happening much as far as jobs my wife and I just worked on them $9.00 our job $10 an hour job sometimes I had two three jobs I had my lowest

point

how much were they?

We both win annually together. I'd say maybe thirty thousand was enough to survive. We were born, we had no job, no health care, nothing, I mean, it was uh, then we got the medical bill from there, the hospital was almost eight nine thousand dollars and we had to pay out of pocket, we lost our house, we lost both . our vehicles with a $1,500 mortgage and two ten dollar an hour car payments aren't going to cut it, we're not going to make ends meet on that kind of money when it comes to working for a temp agency, so At the end of 2008, the house was already in foreclosure.

I gave my son what we had to rely on food stamps. I mean, yeah, what it came down to was that without the food stalls we probably wouldn't have made it. What was it like to obtain services from the state? A moment I will never forget was the first time I walked into the office and saw everyone there and I felt very uncomfortable because I know I don't belong. I mean, I'm a fighter and we have I've been fighting and fighting tooth and nail since we were together and uh just sitting there looking at everyone else around me um and it was overwhelming.

I started to cry. I started crying because I had never been in that situation. Try it. Come on, it's hard, it comes from when we were in I would say, uh, a pretty decent life that we talked about, okay with my guy and we're in the last 300 hours and sometimes it's overwhelming for the whole time that everything was happening. hoping for a light to shine on me, at least have a break in life, sometimes you feel like giving up on everything because things keep piling up and piling up. I mean, what I was hoping for was that someone would give me the opportunity to actually show them what I am and show them that they know what I am, they know I can do something.

I actually started online college while I was in Iraq. It took me five years to get an online degree, one of the good things. the military really did it for me, I paid for my college, it was 100% tuition and then it's where in the Atlantic states we're headed now it gave me the opportunity to give me full time job benefits from day one. and a management role that has honestly been a life-changing opportunity for me and my family, I was given the opportunity because of my title, because of everything I have been through. I think God, thanks to my children, they push me every day. they make me feel like a better man they make me want to be a better man every day and do whatever I have to do to make sure they have the clothes on their back and the food they need, that's what makes me feel like I am a success every day.

A wonderful thing, as long as you keep a job. Keep this work at this pace so we can get through this and find an apartment and be okay. Hopefully Mac is a place that will be open for a long time and can accommodate all the people they keep there because to be honest I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, I don't have any hope, I'm basically looking at everything. day by day because I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow something is going to go wrong if I'm not going to be able to get to work what's going to happen anything I had my dream come true I would have a car that worked you I know I would live in a good neighborhood with my children.

I would have a job even if I didn't have a spouse and it was just me and my kids. I would be perfectly fine with that, well, if I had a good... paying job and all that good stuff, basically, the dream area that anyone would want if they had seen the city change, yeah, about four or five years ago, people really they were leaving, I mean, they were helping each other, they were saying hello to everyone and nowadays it's just people looking at you or looking directly at you because they think you're going to do something.

I mean, it's just that nowadays, when you read, you can't, you can't turn a page in the newspaper without seeing that someone was killed, someone was robbed, someone was raped. It's gotten so bad that people are just

breaking

into houses trying to steal food. How long do we plan to stay? Honestly, I wouldn't say much more. Honestly, you can't come here. I mean, everyone who comes here unfortunately just stays here. Leaving the Marine Corps was my first step out of here and unfortunately I ended up back here and it's been difficult to be able to move on, but you have to pull yourself together to be able to make it what you want.