What’s it like to be poor?
HR Partnership | January 22, 2010
Sue Fitzgerald, left, from Wave City Care, Susan Steed of the Virginia Beach Department of Human Resources and Jamal Gunn from U.S Rep. Glenn Nye’s office read over a packet to see what roles they will be playing in the city’s poverty simulation program at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.
(David B. Hollingsworth | The Virginian-Pilot)
by Judy Le, The Virginian-Pilot
By the end of the month, 36-year-old Melinda Morris didn’t know where the money had gone. Her disabled mother-in-law needed medicine, and they were working hard to keep their utilities on.
Still, they did better than others. All around them, families had been evicted.
Morris is not real. She was one of dozens of low-income personas taken on by participants in Wednesday’s poverty simulation, put on by the Virginia Cooperative Extension office and sponsored by Virginia Beach’’s departments of Human Services and Housing and Neighborhood Preservation.
Dozens of educators and members of local government and faith-based organizations gamely sought to survive one month, made up of 15-minute weeks, on a very limited budget.
The intent of the exercise was to help people better understand the experience of being poor….
