i have worked with people in poverty for a total of three years. i never intended to end up doing it, it's just something that has happened to me on a professional level. given that i keep amassing more and more experience in this area, i'm likely to stay in it for a while.

and honestly, i like working with people who live in poverty.

i started when i got a job in North Carolina, back when I was 22. i worked in the city of Durham selling life insurance, door to door, basically. Durham is famous for educating sporty rapists and being the subject of a Kevin Costner sports movie. it is also the home of Duke University and Duke Medicine. the nickname of Durham is "The City of Medicine".

at one time, Durham had a thriving culture african-american business center. if you talk to the residents, they will tell you how different the city they grew up in was about forty years ago. then, as it was explained to me, white people built a highway through the downtown area and re-zoned most of the businesses in one area. they also basically legally segregated the schools in a way that i can't quite recall right now, but was very clearly a rat-shit underhanded maneuver. 

today, Durham is also known around the rest of North Carolina for having a very bad gang situation. the residents mostly blame this on people coming up from Atlanta and coming down from DC.

here are two different YouTube interpretations of Durham.





during work, i mostly saw the things like you see on that second video. i knew the families of the guys who worked on that documentary, actually. if i'm not mistaken, one of the guys from Kid N' Play had a hand in it. he is a professor at the school, Central University.

i had clients die of natural causes and i had a number of clients who lost family members to guns or to jails. i received a piece of advice from a man with a small collection of children's toys who was robbed for his tax return. he said, "if you see a group of three guys hanging around outside somewhere, don't get out of your car." he died of cancer a few months later and i usually followed his advice.

when i didn't follow his advice, i would go up to these groups of guys and immediately introduce myself, give them business cards, and tell them i would answer any questions they ever had at any time. it was extremely nerve-wracking. i would also tell them everyone i knew in the neighborhood, just to prove that a)i wasn't a cop, and b) was some sort of credible presence in the area who people would look for if i was robbed.

i was never robbed and i never really had much of an incident, although i was very careful.

a number of my co-workers carried guns, however. one of my co-workers, a man from trinadad who was a vietnam vet, had to leap over the hood of his car during a drive by. another one was almost arrested when the swat team kicked in a door with her inside, collecting an insurance payment. another was actually beaten to death by a client, but we all had our suspicions that she had been romantically involved with him. he stole her car and money, but was eventually caught.

that was another intense part about the job. you had to go into all of these areas - sometimes with $3,000 in cash in your briefcase or wallet.

i worked with about two-hundred families. of those, i spent 75% of my time in the homes of these people. it was a very interesting glimpse into the life of being poor. not just, "shit, now i've gotta eat off the dollar menu" poor, but "shit, now i've gotta eat off the dollar menu and figure out a way to get my electricity turned back on" kind of poor. there is a big difference.

about two years later, in 2009, i came back to working in poverty, which is what i am currently doing. i work in the Section 8 office. if you are unaware, Section 8 is a very difficult program to get on where your rent is subsidized based on your income. you can live anywhere that will take Section 8 which is the primary difference between Section 8 and Public Housing, where you have limited options of where to live.

i think i work with three-hundred families now, but it is within an office setting so things are different. i can't take shots of liquor with these families and i don't get to take pictures of bullet holes in televisions anymore. instead, i ask people about their incomes and scramble to help them when their asshole landlords do something illegal and insane.

if you ever have questions about landlord/tenant issues, ask me.

i have become somewhat sensitive towards people who take a harsh position towards people on any sort of public assistance. i have yet to meet someone who is total shithead who actually has had some sort of direct interaction with the people who live in poverty. they are largely ignorant, sheltered, and should be mugged once a week by someone of a different race each time, just to confuse and spite them.

people will say that public assistance creates a class of people who rely on the government to take care of them. maybe so. but do you have any idea how much in assistance these people receive?

it's not much. i could get into specifics, but i won't. it's an amount that if you can live comfortably on, you're a goddamn financial genius or a buddhist/walden-dork or something.

i guess this came to me one day at work when i was sitting around, verifying someone's benefits and thinking, "shit, this person is just being given $1200 every month, that's not fair."

and it's not fair. i still think so. i think it sucks. you know what's even more unfair? the fact that not a single person on this planet was given the choice on whether or not they were born or conceived. at least by giving them a chance to have a pair of name-brand shoes every two years and eat three meals a day, there is a chance that they won't feel so horrible about themselves and grow up to do bad things.

the part that's most interesting to me, which was pointed out by my roommate, is that the people who are typically so opposed to public assistance are the same people who damn others for getting abortions or using contraceptives.

i am still amazed every time i hear someone who genuinely believes that these government programs should be abolished.