Falling Through the Cracks: Poverty is Personal
By Anonymous / Fall 2020
It’s raining, I’m waiting in line at a Starbuck’s in my SUV blasting the heater, about to enjoy an overpriced coffee that I can hardly pronounce. I peer over and see a group of people bundled up on the sidewalk under a canopy, providing the smallest dry patch for them to sit. A scene I once scoffed at in disgust and arrogance, I now sympathize in humility and understanding. I remember the days I was homeless, too.
You see, I was taught that people chose the life of homelessness and poverty. I was told that work is so readily available in the United States, that people from other countries flocked here to join the American dream by choice. Both my parents had high salaries, and my mother claimed that if she could successfully climb a male-dominated field, that everyone else had no excuse. Neoliberal attitudes rang loud in my home; compete against others to thrive. My parents often cited how hard they worked, and that laziness was the culprit behind a lack of income. I was surrounded by the ideology that people were successful because of their own hard work, and the market would reward those who earned it. George Monbiot’s writings on neoliberalism pointed out that the rich would correlate their success to their efforts, and disregard their socioeconomic advantages, and people in poverty were blamed for their shortcomings (Monbiot). This was how my parents described their wealth. No credit was given to the generations of social and financial support that allowed them to obtain homes and passive income. People in less fortunate situations, from low socioeconomic status are blamed for the hurdles they face. This poses an increasingly unequal playing field in society, while giving a false sense of fairness.
Troubling dynamics drove me to move out of my parent’s house before I became a legal adult. I was cut off from the plentiful resources that would have otherwise been available -a small price to pay, I thought. I found myself living with my boyfriend in the middle of a low-income neighborhood, working a minimum wage job and taking classes at a local community college. Previously living a life of financial comfort, I quickly became part of the many people in the United States who are overworked, with no savings and no time. I retained the mentality that I must work hard and things will pay off. People in my situation find that we are only one crisis away from financial ruin.
One night, while walking in the neighborhood, I was hit by a vehicle and my life was changed forever. Most of this time period is a blur- filled with sirens and beeps, dazed, and being wheeled in and out of surgeries. I had help from my partner, but soon after this event began our journey of navigating homelessness. Due to my injuries, I couldn’t walk or work. It took only one event to bring two working students to the streets, with most of our belongings shoved in the back of my SUV. By day we seemed like normal kids sitting around at coffee shops, but by night we were bundled up under blankets, wedged within a few feet of everything we owned. Having food, bathrooms, laundry and showers all become a separate, planned trip was exhausting, and I can only imagine how it would have been to have kids to take care of or no car.
In the parking spaces next to us were often families, some with small children, crammed into even less space. If we slept in a safer, well-lit areas, police would come and knock on our door, ordering us to leave. If we parked down an alley, we risked being easy targets for theft. So, the solution was to stay at the corners of parking lots, and near others who are also living out of a car. This collective hiding from law officials consequentially meant not being accounted for in San Diego’s rising homeless numbers, which was reported to be at 8,102 people last year (WeAllCount). Statistics on the homeless population rely on volunteers, activists and programs in the community to account for the people, and do not include those who are living on the edge.
Why were so many people homeless? Similar to me, many people I spoke to also encountered a hardship that was outside of their control. Disability was a common theme that typically led to a lower income and eviction- and according to the homeless people I spoke to, government aid wasn’t making up for the rising cost of living. This isn’t surprising when you think about how many homeless people can be seen walking so slow or in pain. A survey found that 58% of the homeless population had a disability (Warth). Disability also includes people with mental health conditions, which often makes it harder to obtain adequate and consistent social support. This reveals bigger issues with society’s competitive ideologies: cutting social programs to promote a free-market society will mean people with disabilities get cast aside. This makes having strong interpersonal support systems a huge factor in resiliency against hard life events.
Within the homeless and housing-insecure population, a lack of interpersonal support systems also seemed to be common. My experience with moving out young meant that I didn’t have a lot of options or resources, and living paycheck to paycheck seemed to be my only option. I worked with other people my age who experienced getting kicked out at 18 and also started life without a lot of resources. I’m wondering if these experiences are common among the 12% of homeless people in San Diego who were found to be under the age of 24 (WeAllCount). On more than one occasion, I met housing-insecure people who came from unsupportive, dysfunctional, or outright abusive homes. Dysfunctional backgrounds can pave the way for unstable emotional and financial well-being, so it’s unsurprising that the bigger picture of society’s dismissive attitude towards other’s struggles yields the same instabilities. The obvious solution would be to invest more into social programs that can help capture people falling through the cracks, but police officers are frequently tasked with facing the homeless crisis- and they do so by enforcing laws.
My encounters with law enforcement, as a homeless person, were frequent and unproductive. I parked legally in public streets, and my only crime was sleeping- and I was told to move. People without cars often face harsher punishments, such as being ticketed or even arrested for sleeping in public places. I was never offered solutions or resources, when at the time I needed it the most. It seemed that loitering and vehicular living laws focused more on making homelessness not visible to the public- as if to hide the faults of the system and create a public image of normality. The status quo doesn’t go challenged if the community is not seeing a problem, and thus, people continue to pay into a social safety net that is not working. Chris hedges points out in his article, American Anomie, the injustice that is shown, between the top one percent earners and the middle and lower class. The corporate elites are able to dodge taxes through loopholes, while the rest of society pays into the social system- and yet when bailouts and withdraws are made, it is towards large corporations and ignores the common people (Hedges). It would seem that these loopholes are deliberate, allowing people in power to use wealth and lobbying to maintain that power with a firm grip. The corruption and injustice are most visible at the bottom, where people are starving, without homes and fallen through the cracks. So, the people who represent these cracks are hidden through this unequal lawmaking. A survey of 1,000 inmates in the San Diego jail showed a staggering 25% consisting of people who were homeless (Warth). The homeless people that are seen on the streets is what is left over after so many are currently incarcerated. When so many people have to hide from officials, the true number of homeless people and housing insecure community is likely to be much larger than what is being counted. This isn’t benefiting society, and is consuming resources to house so many people in jail cells, resources that taxpayers are paying for. The middle and lower class are footing the bill for the elite maintaining the status quo, and hiding it. A shift in how we view homelessness is needed in society in order for the cracks to be mended and hold corporate elites equally accountable to the law.
The inequality of corporate elites not answering to the same laws as the rest of society paints a picture of a bigger problem. When social inequality of such a grand scale occurs in a society that is highly individualistic, then as a community we fall. The idea that America is about freedom and equal opportunity is extremely flawed when taking into account that the game is rigged in favor of people born into money that receive privileges that are not afforded to the groups that pay into them. A community can challenge the system when coming together, but attitudes towards the different social classes must change, and inequality must be recognized.
People born in the United States are often fed the ideas of owning a white-picket fence and living in individual cookie cutter homes. We are told through a neoliberalist ideology that we must be better than our neighbors and achieve this dream. People who have limited resources, lower socioeconomic status, disabled or are a minority are not playing on an equal field to achieve this dream- and yet society still assumes that if you cannot achieve this dream, then it is your own fault. The communities that we live in become further divided the more we compete and point blame at people who are struggling the most. This impacts more than just the people falling through the cracks, but the community as a whole. Disconnection in a highly individualistic society with an ‘every man for himself’ mentality is not what humans were meant to do.
As humans we need community to survive. This point was made in an interview with a small family-like community of people who lived radically different lifestyles than the nuclear family homes that most people are accustomed to seeing in the United States. A group of four family units collaborated in a small community-style living space, with multiple homes and shared common grounds, and were able to thrive even in the midst of the pandemic (Scahill). This style of living provided several advantages, a network of shared resources, child-care, and strong bonds. A close-knit community that can be there for one another and provide support when needed created a safety net when the Covid-19 pandemic created job loss and uncertainty. Not everyone lives on the same property to create these networks, although it is more cost-efficient to do so. One of my friends lives in a similar community-living style, but on adjacent properties. It started as living in a shared apartment after high school with one couple and two friends. The couple was able to save for a home and decided to rent out their rooms to the same friends. The friend group became 3 couples, 1 single, and when the house next to them was for sale, they decided, “why not be neighbors?” and split off. Now they share a driveway, have meals together, and utilize different trades, labor skill, and have plans to split childcare in the future. Even now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, they are able to collaborate, share job opportunities, save trips to the store, share tools and appliances and security footage systems and provide emotional comfort and belonging. Their resilience to hardships and job losses was fortified through close connections and trust, and the multifamily-like community has room to grow. In both examples, these trusted living groups reject the notion that we must compete against one another to thrive, or that we must isolate into nuclear families. In the same ways that the elite thrive from family fortunes and revolving doors, success comes with collaboration and tight community networks.
Similar messages have been made through current organizations and groups. A former teacher in my life helped me, and gave enough guidance and networks that would end our situation of homelessness. The church they belonged to offered a sense of community to its members, and had its own welfare system organized through donations and fundraisers. Despite being vocal about my atheism, I was able to receive connections and aid without becoming a member, because I was trusted and known to be in genuine need- it was personal. I was not a stack of filled forms or applications, but a person facing a systematic problem that would not be easily solved though the current safety nets. Other organizations include the Poor People’s Campaign, started by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, which addresses corruption, poverty and racial inequality while also being open to people of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds to protest systematic wealth inequality and injustice (Poor People's Campaign, Stanford). Social movements and organizations like this help unite people who have fallen through the gaps of the safety net, and bring widespread attention for a chance at policy change and resolution. Policy changes include the fight for healthcare rights, wage laws, social programs, rent limits, and closing tax loopholes. Another important component is education to the public on social issues, racial inequality, and wealth gaps. These conversations need to be had, starting with breaking the silence that we are taught to have around politics. The silence that has only benefited those in power.
Change isn’t limited to political action, either. Refusal to play the competitive individualistic role in the corporate elitism market is a powerful option. Creating close communities that share resources and provides a group resilience to life events that would otherwise leave people in financial ruts. Communities can work together to create and normalize closer, more personal networks. People can share spaces, host frequent farmer’s markets, and volunteer within the community. We can open up honest conversations with those around us, such as using the simple phrase, “how are you?” and offering support, even if only moral. Isolating in nuclear homes can be challenged by maintaining networks and collaborative support with those closest to us, and keeping our doors open to the possibility of adding members to the pod.
For those strangers currently in financial, emotional or physical crisis, we can help by studying up on local organizations in our area, or when possible, propose new organizations that are needed to support our collective values. The presence of resources is only half of the equation, networking people to those resources is just as important and often neglected. People who have fallen through the cracks don’t always have the tools we often take for granted, such as a car, a phone, internet access, a street address, and reading/writing skills that allows them to find and utilize these resources. Navigating through all the unique and individual resources can be tedious, time-consuming and confusing. Volunteering our physical presence is needed- and it makes it personal.
When we bring the most vulnerable people to the center of the conversation, we can see where the faults lie, address them, and become a stronger whole.
Works Cited
Warth, G. (2020, September 15). County's homeless: Disabled, 55 and older and Black. Retrieved December 22, 2020, from
Monbiot, G. (2016, April 15). Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
Hedges, C. (2018, September 24). American Anomie. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
Scahill, J. (2020, August 05). Intercepted: Escape From the Nuclear Family. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
Poor People's Campaign. (2018, June 05). Retrieved December 22, 2020.
2019 POINT-IN-TIME-COUNT (WeAllCount) RESULTS. (2019). San Diego, CA: San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless.