Getting Ahead- Erica Penz
I learned in my Getting Ahead Class that there are two types of poverty, situational and generational. Situational poverty is when your life is going along fine, you may not be rich but you are meeting all your needs, then some event happens that throws you into poverty. The event can be a sudden illness resulting in unexpected medical expenses, job loss, or the significant downturn in the economy. Generational poverty is when you are born in to poverty and that is all you know growing up.
As you can imagine, situational poverty is easier to escape then generational poverty, as you already have all the tools you need to succeed and just need to climb some hurdles. People in generational poverty have the same hurdles to climb and more, but no one has ever showed them how. They are living in a world that runs on middle class values and attitudes and they do not know how to properly navigate those waters.
I grew up in generational poverty. My mom is 55 years old and still works two jobs and barely makes ends meet. She has worked two jobs since I was a baby and I am now 38, I also work two jobs a lot of the time, yet I have no health benefits, I live in Public Housing and my family receives Food Stamps. How is this possible, you ask? I would like to know myself; here is my story.
When I was in high school I excelled at academics. Although I was poor and living with relatives in foster care, I was told I could go to college and “make something of myself.” Through many thousands of dollars in student loans and working full time at the Student Union I did go to college and graduated with a double Bachelors of Science degree. I thought that was it, my ticket to success. I was wrong! While college gave me the scholarly knowledge that I paid good money to learn, it taught me nothing of the life skills I needed to survive on my own. Skills I did not learn while I was growing up in poverty, like how to budget or use credit responsibly.
After graduating from college I had the urge to travel, see the country and escape the small town life of New Hampshire. This adventure brought me to Boulder, Colorado. Once here I took the first job I could find, a convenience store clerk. This was followed by other retail positions I took just to pay the bills. Soon I met and fell in love with the man who would become my husband. He was living his life day-to-day, carefree with no responsibilities and that sounded pretty good to me since I was still burnt out from earning a dual degree in four years while working a full time job. That carefree life did not last long because I soon became pregnant with my daughter.
When my daughter was seven months old we moved back to New Hampshire. I took a job at the factory where my mom has worked since I was in elementary school, and I stayed there for over four years. It was by no means a cushy job. The pay was low, there were frequent shutdowns and lay-offs and we still weren’t making ends meet. My husband was unhappy in New Hampshire, the weather there made living with his disability (degenerative disc disease) extremely painful. In 2006 we decided that it would be better for our family, which had grown to include a son, to move back to Colorado.
We stayed with friends who let us live in their basement until we could find a place of our own. Since moving back, I have only been able to find temporary or seasonal work. I keep hearing what a wonderful employee I am and how they would love to keep me on, if only they had the funding. I keep hoping with each new temporary job that maybe things will work out and I will be able to stay. To have medical insurance, vacation days and just the security of knowing the paychecks will keep coming would make an enormous difference in our lives.
Erica Penz, a participant in the Circles Campaign and Recruitment Team co-lead.
As I mentioned earlier, I live in Public Housing. Through the Family Self Sufficiency program I was offered the chance to take a 16-week course. This course was called Getting Ahead. I learned so much about myself in this class and the situation I was in. I am not alone in this, many other people are stuck in this circumstance just like me and it is not all our fault. I learned it was not merely the poor decision- making of those living in poverty that kept them down, but the system designed to help them as well. Our social service system in this country is a good thing and we truly need it, however, the way it operates is not conducive to helping people leave poverty, but in some ways, keeps them trapped there.
That is where the Circles Campaign comes into play. Circles is a national movement to end poverty in our country in our lifetime, a bold undertaking indeed. Circles is a high impact strategy to end poverty that involves the whole community. A Circle consists of two types of people, a Circle Leader who has taken the Getting Ahead Class and two to four Allies or volunteers from the community. First, the Allies are trained in the Bridges out of Poverty philosophy. Second, the Allies are trained to support and empower the Circle Leaders they will be working with. They are shown that they are not there to solve their Circle Leaders problems or to tell them what to do; they are there to help them along the path to change what they have chosen for themselves.
The Circles Campaign is something I deeply believe in. I have been involved in the campaign for over a year now. After I attended the Getting Ahead Class, I co-facilitated another Getting Ahead class through WorkForce Boulder County. Since then, I have become a member of the Circles Guiding Coalition and the co-chair of the Circles recruitment team. I am currently working at Community Action Programs as an intern for the summer working specifically on Circles, and it has been a wonderful experience. It’s so exciting to be in on the ground floor and involved in crucial decision-making for the Campaign. It is great to have a program here in Boulder County that is so committed to ending poverty and one that listens to the voices of those in poverty. It is not a “do as I say” philosophy, rather one of empowerment and one that I believe will actually work.
As for me personally, I am still living in poverty but I am gaining the knowledge and skills I need to move towards self-sufficiency. Even when my internship ends in September, I will remain committed to Circles and will become a Circle Leader myself in Lafayette. The knowledge, skills, and connections I have gained since becoming involved in Circles has become invaluable to me. They have given me hope that I will not always be living in poverty and that my children are not doomed to this life as well, and can grow up to be successful adults.
