Living Underwear-Poor in the Midst of So Much Wealth

Ever feel out of place at a hoity-toity party because everyone besides you is from the right side of the tracks? About 25 miles west of Chicago sits DuPage County, Illinois, one of the country's wealthiest counties, where almost 20,000 kids experience the angst of poverty.

Poverty is more than feeling out of place. You are out of place in DuPage. And confusion prevails, especially in places unaccustomed to paucity. Enlightened people know "real poverty" far exceeds the grossly underestimated government levels. In DuPage, a single parent with a pre-schooler and school age child needs a whopping $61,000 to make ends meet, far from the measly $20,000 income eked out by more than 20,000 households in this affluent county.

How does that translate as families shake off summer sweat and shift into school mode? Instead of obvious needs — backpacks, pens, etc. — let's ponder the real basics for a kid to feel good about trudging through newly-waxed hallways into the classroom. Underneath the layer of denim and cotton tees, how about undies, socks and a daily change of those essentials? Bet my lunch money that most impoverished kids come up short in the underwear and socks department, even in DuPage.

Foreclosures have hit DuPage hard, pushing it to ninth out of 102 Illinois counties in foreclosure rankings in the first quarter of 2010. Imagine being a kid whose family bounces around, not really knowing where they're going to stay night at night. That often happens after sheriff's evictions. Families then turn to relatives and friends, if they still have them, or slink into motels, paying up to $400 a week for efficiency-type rooms. Probably last on their list of anxieties is an adequate supply of socks and undies.

In the meantime, kids worry more about changing schools than changing underwear, with trauma piled onto the ever-growing anxiety that comes from their stress-overloaded circumstances. School districts should comply with the strong federal and state laws that make provisions for kids who've lost their place to stay. But often the family does not identify themselves as homeless. Or the school doesn't believe them. Or the family doesn't know that the kids can stay in their school of origin. Access to school and educational stability is vital, especially as kids cope with these traumas.

These two kids, in less than 20 seconds, will give you an idea of how homelessness affects their state of mind. If they move you, and I hope they do, here are ways to help:

• Sign my petition to urge Congress to appropriate more resources to help schools deal with the conservatively estimated one million homeless students.
• Hold a "Socks n' Undies Sunday" collection at your place of worship (or work). Donate the new packets of undies and socks to your school district's homeless liaison, the nearest shelter or food pantry. And do it more than once a year.
• Share info about homeless students' educational rights (pdf) with families you know who have lost their homes.
• Offer to tutor or provide other vital support to programs that work with highly mobile families.

Seems to me if things are this bad for kids in DuPage, it's gotta be a lot worse in most other areas. Come to think of it, we seem to be growing a bumper crop of kids "comfortable" with poverty. Think about who will be out of place at the parties of the future?

Photo credit: Diane Nilan