Poverty In America
Yekaterina Ivanchuk
I come from a country where homelessness is the first thing you see when you start your day, and the last. My family traveled away from this country I called home to receive greater opportunities and live in a space free of poverty. To our surprise, the “American Dream” was not as dreamy as we had imagined. My country, though flooded with poverty, had a deep sense of community and care for those in great tragedy. In America we witnessed temperatures in which individuals froze to death, and no one stopped to give them even a dollar to attempt to get into a shelter. We saw children with their parents sprinting inside of churches to get the last remaining free coats, accepting the fact they might have to freeze all winter if they couldn’t get there fast enough.
In movies we saw the bright yellow school buses, carpeted classrooms, fancy buffets, and families entertaining guests at holiday parties with more food than I have ever seen. So we found a way into what looked like the Promised Land. We soon figured out the version we saw was for the wealthy, not for the poor. My mother tried to find work. This of course led to three jobs and tears from seeing how little you can make when you are breaking your back during 80 hour work weeks. We had no community; our neighbors had their doors shut, and the school systems didn’t bother meeting us at our knowledge of their language but instead forced unrealistic expectations, causing us to come close to failure multiple times. Services became closed off, and what seemed like an easy transition into the country was looking to be more like a death sentence.
With time we figured out the ins and the outs of our new home. We grew more successful, but never above a certain financial class, and the community we once had we quickly realized was no longer attainable. Minnesota was not a place without poverty. It was in every shelter, every low wage job, and even in people’s homes. It is a state reflective of the whole country, which is not a place of opportunities but rather a place of favoritism and exclusion. I learned the depths of these issues during my time as a HECUA intern at St. Stephen’s Human Services.
St. Stephens Human Services helps individuals in crisis mode (or close to it) to find stable housing. They have specific programs designed for those with criminal records to find housing, and they do not turn a blind eye to those with substance abuse because they understand it is a condition, not a choice.
What I have struggled with understanding is how Minnesota can be so rich in resources, but it took me till my senior year in college to realize any of them even existed? I went to school, sat through the classes, went to different areas of the state and country, but somehow never knew how many individuals experience homelessness, how many people struggle to make rent, the large number of services there are, but also how many hoops you must jump through to obtain the littlest amount of help.
What I believed to be my own family’s issues with making a stable ground for ourselves in this country were actually widespread issues that affected many, no matter their citizenship status. Individuals struggled with affordable housing, paying bills on time, finding jobs, keeping their mental health on track, and finding community like anyone else would. It’s easy to say that those who live with stable finances are not affected by any of those issues and have it easier off, but that is truly not the case in this country. Those in stable financial positions have come to their wealth through perhaps some inside help, but mostly through the same systems everyone goes through. Poverty is not just in those communities with a lack of resources and funding but also in the richer communities as well. They can be poor in the health issues that align in their families, or the lack of support they receive from those around them. Poverty in America is widespread. It affects every individual in a variety of ways that I believe most are closed off to admitting, due to the generalized belief that those in poverty or struggling, and choose to be their situations.
This piece is part of a series written by college undergraduates enrolled in off-campus study programs through the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA). HECUA programs offer students a chance to think deeply about the issues that matter most, and we’d like to share a piece of that experience with you. Every student post on the HECUA Medium page considers a theory or reading that intersects with that student’s lived experience. For more information about HECUA programs, click here.
