Poor People Just Don't Try Hard Enough

Hunter:
"Oh, it's just too hard. The poor are helpless and can't take care of themselves." The heck they can't. And the ones who do take action and start taking care of themselves won't be poor for long.


Since my employer stopped publishing, I've been sending out at least one resumé per week for two years. I've been going on job interviews locally at least once every 2 weeks.

The only way I could move would be to sell absolutely everything I own.

I moved here from KY 10 years ago. I ran a boarding house here, trying to get ahead. The city condemned it; I was evicted; the neighbors stole my checkbook and wiped out my bank acc't; my animals were killed; I ended up way out in the desert without a car at the mercy of a very sick family.

That was 10 months after the death of my baby.

I have worked 'til my feet were bleeding to try to get ahead. I'm in so much pain right now, from a 5 mi. walk on Monday to drag home 200 lbs. of cheap food for the month, from making my paper mache masks to sell at a "family peace fair' this weekend, that my body is literally screaming in pain and I can't lie still. I have to keep moving around to ease the pain. I don't know how I'll sleep tonight.

That's what I mean about how hard poor people work.

I ran a 10 minute errand today. It took a total of 3 hours, because the bus I needed to get there only runs once an hour.

I know people who collect aluminum, cardboard, etc. It's filthy, exhausting work. People on the streets attack us "trash pickers."

Your representation of that woman on NPR was unfair: you didn't mention, in your first post, that she is a drug addict. Addicts are not normal, healthy people. Their brains are disabled by addiction. They can't think straight. The ONLY thing that's really important to addicts is scoring more of the drug of choice. An addict is not able minded. An addict needs rehab.

This isn't an era of the so-called "American dream" anymore.

When I sell my crafts-made-of-trash on the streets of my city, I could be arrested at any moment. This is because I don't have enough money saved up to get a "peddler's license" and the small business registration and tax forms that would make me "legal." I'm a criminal, for trying to earn some money.

This isn't about self pity, depression, apathy, victim mentality. Every day, I get up and go at it all over again.

One of the excuses the city used to try to call my house a "nuisance" was the arts and crafts supplies and the used clothing and household items I'd trashed picked that were neatly stored in the 4 car garage of the boardng house.

Cop: "Why do you have these beer bottles in this bucket?"

Me: "I get them from my neighbor's trash. I'm soaking the labels off. I tie strings around them, soaked in kerosene. I light the strings, then dip the bottle in ice water. The bottle cracks into rings. I paint them, hang them from fishing line and make them into wind chimes."

Cop: "You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

Me: "I have answers for what I do and why, if that's everything."

Cop: "Smart assed bitch, ain't you?"

Me: silence.

2 hours later, I was homeless, being forced into the back of an ambulance for a psychiatric exam, and my animals (including chickens for eggs) were being loaded into animal control vehicles. They all died.