Day 5: Razor Ribbon and Roadkill on Rural GA Highways

We're were in rural, rebel flag country over the weekend, where razor ribbon, re-po joints and roadkill adorn these flat Georgia highways.

After waking up in a parking lot to the bang of garbage trucks doing their job, Pat LaMarche and I finished our posts (hers can be found at Huffington Post). We left our "camping" spot in Georgia Southern University's parking lot and headed to Tallahassee, rolling diagonally across the Peach State.

Speaking with folks at our GA Southern event the previous night confirmed what we've seen so far on this 2,000 mile, 8-state journey: rampant poverty and hidden homelessness take the "shine" off bucolic rural life. A school social worker, obviously stressed by her day-to-day challenges, begged for information about how to start a shelter for the desperate families in her community.

Pat and I are on this Southern (Dis)Comfort tour to shine a light on homelessness and poverty in the southeastern corner of the country—the corner that doesn't seem to get much attention on these issues. Our daunting itinerary is not as daunting as the daily lives of people struggling to survive the vortex of destitution when everything they need for a productive, self-sufficient life dangles far beyond their reach. Here in rural Georgia, they're fighting what appears to be a losing battle at a time when the new governor, state legislature and feds are sharpening their budget axes.

Driving backroads lined with swamps and pecan groves, nothing says all's well with rural Georgia. This USDA persistent poverty map validates our dire assessment. An occasional stately home looks out of place among broken-down trailers and depression era shacks. Towns, with loan-shark operations interspersed with abandoned storefronts, are small stumbles away from 21st century ghost towns. The death knell of rural America echos as steadily as the clacking of train wheels. A painful reminder of misguided government "priorities" lies south of south of Atlanta, the previous governor's legacy—an over-priced interactive fishing resort will suck down tax dollars for years to come.

Pat and I, with the luxury of time to muse about our surroundings as we go from stop to stop, lament the lack of opportunity for families and individuals to thrive in a part of the country that gets little respect. International conglomerate paper companies strip forests of stately pine trees, leaving a veneer of green along the highways to hide their destruction. Human services, a feeble safety net before the economic meltdown, face new Governor Deal's brutal reality budget, similar to many broke and broken states across America. The rural young get fed to the military as a way out of this hopeless life... becoming road kill in our quest to exert America's superiority in oil countries.

The bright spot down here is the glistening razor ribbon protecting society from the likes of "deadbeat" parents tossed in debtor prisons to get them to pay child support. Child support payments are a good thing. Tossing the parent in jail because of lack of payment seems to be an, um, unenlightened way to approach the problem. But it keeps the sheriff, jails and corrections people busy, and paid. Pat shares a little bit of her home state's wisdom on this vexing problem of child support--Maine denies parents their hunting and fishing license, a less-punitive and more effective incentive.

Meanwhile, back in our nation's capitol, a small piece of legislative action to begin the move to address invisible homelessness sits in the hopper. The "Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2011" will provide a vehicle to include the vast amount of uncounted homeless families and youth in HUD's definition of homelessness. It's a start that needed to happen years ago. HUD, Congress and the rest of America need to own up to America's hidden homeless population, families and youth sleeping in no-tell-motels, substandard ancient trailers, storage sheds, and worse.

Seems to me that our mission faces an uphill climb as we slide into the Sunshine State where the gators of Gainesville find more food than people in poverty seeking a meal at the overtaxed soup kitchen.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan