Story Lines

As a member of the group, I was assigned to create the story lines for our exhibition. 

I approached this by reviewing each subject area more thoroughly and then finding statistics that could relate to said situation. I created the situation and then placed the statistics at the end so they could be related back to Douglas County.

* These are wordy but as the saying goes: The devil is in the details :) The idea was that one would be able to work with them and perhaps place them in bullet points or summarize more directly. 

What does it mean to live in Poverty?

You are currently enrolled at the University, wishing to obtain your Bachelor Degree. With this degree, working options will be more varied and hopefully provide you with a more stable income than your current budget. Due to student loans and having to pay for your basic necessities, you must maintain a tight budget that forces you to deprive yourself of a daily meal and heating necessities. Although you are struggling to meet needs with your part-time job yearly salary of $11,850, sadly you do not meet the poverty guidelines salary cutoff of $11,770. Qualifying for the poverty guideline could have provided some financial assistance, allowing you to have three meals a day and live in a healthy environment. However, you make $80 more than the cutoff, therefore, you cannot qualify as a member of the 19% of Douglas County residents that live in poverty and receive the benefits of the poverty guidelines.

What are some hard choices that have to be made daily by people in poverty?

You are a single mother of two daughters, currently renting an apartment. You work a full-time job that pays minimum wage, forcing you and your daughters to live on a monthly budget of $600 for food, transportation, health expense, etc. breaking it down to $150 a week for a household of three. You do this in order to pay your monthly rent, making you a part of the 48.6% of Douglas County residents who are renters and pay more than 35% of their household income on rent in order to have a roof over their heads.

Who suffers the most from poverty?

You are a widower left with three small children to care and provide for. You are consumed by grief and struggle with an alcohol addiction. This addiction causes you to lose your full-time job, and you are eventually evicted from your house. You and your children are placed at the Community Shelter but eventually turned away due to an incident with other residents. Living on the streets and unable to provide for your children, your friends call social services to place your children in protective custody. Until you are able to keep a stable job and earn a decent salary, you are forbidden to see your children, who have been placed in the foster system. Your children will be forced to live without the care and presence of their true father, slowly forgetting what it meant to be a family.

How does poverty impact children?

You are the oldest boy of five. You must be a role model and protector for your younger brothers while your parents work long hours. You and your brothers are home alone most of the time; therefore you must take care of everyone, giving you little time to be the boy you are. You must cook the meals, clean clothing, and make sure all their schoolwork is done properly. Although your parents work hard to provide daily necessities, the food closet seems to decrease on a weekly basis due to other more pressing needs. You are glad to deprive yourself of food, if it means more for the younger children but eventually your parents are unable to provide healthy food for any of you. Due to their struggle, your parents receive financial help from the state to provide a small amount of food. You have become a part of the 16.8% of Douglas County children who live in households with Food Stamp/SNAP benefits. Although you are receiving benefits, you must always be aware and ration the food closet so everyone is provided for while your parents are away.

Who are the working poor?

You get up at 6AM, go to school (you have a full course load, but you only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then you get the kids, then you pick up your husband, then you have half an hour to change and go to job two. You get home from that at around 12:30AM, but you have the rest of your classes and work to tend to. You’re in bed by 3AM. This isn't your every day. You have two days off a week from each of your obligations. You use that time to clean the house and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights you’re in bed by midnight, but if you go to bed too early you won't be able to stay up the other nights because your pattern will be messed up. You drive an hour home from job two so you can't afford to be sleepy. You never get a day off from work unless you are fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.

How does poverty impact health?

You are a child living in poverty within the Douglas County Region. Your parents are unable to pay for health or dental insurance due to the more pressing needs of paying rent. Therefore, you have never been to the dentist once in your life. This was never an issue until you began to experience severe pain. The pain began subtly when you ate or smiled to quickly. But now the pain is unbearable as your teeth are rotting, and black stones have replaced the once white shining baby teeth. The only way to avoid the pain is to simply avoid the hard foods, and smile less. Your family is part of the 36.7% of the Douglas County population with annual income below $35,000 self reported poor health status.

How does health impact poverty?

You are a father of four children. You have lived your life fairly well, able to provide a healthy and sufficient environment for your family. Sadly, your wife was diagnosed with cancer five months ago. In order for your wife to receive the proper treatment and hopefully recover, you have spent a great deal of money. However, the health bills continue to pile up until you are drained financially. With your wife still struggling with cancer, you are forced to declare bankruptcy.  You are evicted from your house and lose your job.  You have no other option than to find two jobs that will allow you to pay your health debt, while also pay for the rent of your small apartment.