j**4
发帖数: 10425 | 1 xiang3 zhe yao4 jia4 ren2. ni3 men2 kan4 kan4 zhe4 shi4 jie4 shang4 you3
duo1 shao3 ren2 sheng1 huo2 zai4 shui3 sheng1 huo3 re4 zhi1 zhong1 !!!
=====================================================================
At a food pantry in a Chicago suburb, a 38-year-old mother of two breaks
into tears.
She and her husband have been out of work for nearly two years. Their house
and car are gone. So is their foothold in the middle class and, at times,
their self-esteem.
"It's like there is no way out," says Kris Fallon.
She is trapped like so many others, destitute in the midst of America's
abundance. Last week, the Census Bureau released new figures showing that
nearly one in six Americans lives in poverty — a record 46.2 million people
. The poverty rate, pegged at 15.1 percent, is the highest of any major
industrialized nation, and many experts believe it could get worse before it
abates.
The numbers are daunting — but they also can seem abstract and numbing
without names and faces.
Associated Press reporters around the country went looking for the people
behind the numbers. They were not hard to find.
There's Tim Cordova, laid off from his job as a manager at a McDonald's in
New Mexico, and now living with his wife at a homeless shelter after a
stretch where they slept in their Ford Focus.
There's Bill Ricker, a 74-year-old former repairman and pastor whose home is
a dilapidated trailer in rural Maine. He scrapes by with a monthly $1,003
Social Security check. His ex-wife also is hard up; he lets her live in the
other end of his trailer.
There's Brandi Wells, a single mom in West Virginia, struggling to find a
job and care for her 10-month-old son. "I didn't realize that it could go so
bad so fast," she says.
Some were outraged by the statistics. Marian Wright Edelman of the Children'
s Defense Fund called the surging child poverty rate "a national disgrace."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cited evidence that poverty shortens life spans,
calling it "a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people."
Overall, though, the figures seemed to be greeted with resignation, and
political leaders in Washington pressed ahead with efforts to cut federal
spending. The Pew Research Center said its recent polling shows that a
majority of Americans — for the first time in 15 years of being surveyed on
the question — oppose more government spending to help the poor.
"The news of rising poverty makes headlines one day. And the next it is
forgotten," said Los Angeles community activist and political commentator
Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
Such is life in the Illinois town of Pembroke, one of the poorest in the
Midwest, where schools and stores have closed. Keith Bobo, a resident trying
to launch revitalization programs, likened conditions to the Third World.
"A lot of the people here just feel like they are on an island, like no one
even knows that they exist," he said.
___
STRUGGLING ON $18,000 A YEAR
It's hard to find some of the poorest residents in Pembroke. They live in
places like the tree-shaded gravel road where the Bargy family's dust-
smudged trailer is wedged in the soil, flanked by overgrown grass.
By the official numbers, Pembroke's 3,000 residents are among the poorest in
the region, but the problem may be worse. The mayor believes as many as 2,
000 people were uncounted, living far off the paths that census workers trod.
The staples that make up the town square are gone: No post office, no
supermarket, no pharmacy, no barber shop or gas station. School doors are
shuttered. The police officers were all laid off, a meat processing plant
closed. In many places, light switches don't work, and water faucets run dry
. Residents let their garbage smolder on their lawn because there's no truck
to take it away; many homes are burned out.
Ken Bargy, 58, had to stop working five years ago because of his health and
is now on disability. His wife drives a school bus in a neighboring town. He
sends his children, 15 and 10, to school 20 miles away. In the back of the
trailer, he offers shelter to his elderly mother, who is bedridden and dying
of cancer.
The $18,000 the family pieces together from disability payments and
paychecks must go to many things: food, lights, water, medical bills. There
are choices to make.
"With the cost of everything going up, I have to skip a light bill to get
food or skip a phone bill to get food," he says. "My checking account is
about 20 bucks in the hole."
About 75 miles away, in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, dozens of
families lined up patiently outside the Willow Creek Care Center as
truckloads of food for the poor were unloaded.
Among those waiting was Kris Fallon of nearby Palatine, mother of a teen and
an infant, who hitched a ride with a friend.
She recounted how she and her husband — once earning nearly $100,000 a year
between the two of them— lost their jobs, forcing them to move from their
rented home into an apartment and give up their car.
"We fight a lot because of the situation," she said. "We wonder where we are
going to come up with money to pay rent, where we are going to get food,
formula for the baby."
She began to cry.
"I never understood why there were so many food pantries and why people
couldn't just get on their feet and get going, but now that I'm in it, I
fully understand," she said. "I sometimes feel like I am a loser ... I have
never been unemployed and I never thought I would be going through this,
ever."
Her husband, Jim, 43, said he's looked for jobs all over the country in the
past two years, and just accepted an offer of a three-month stint in Paducah
, Ky., on a hotel reconstruction project.
"Leaving for a job out of state for three months is what I have to do," he
said. "It's terrible but it's our reality ... I guess this is the new
America."
By Robert Ray
___
SHARING POVERTY WITH A FORMER SPOUSE
Bill Ricker's woes date back to the 1980s, when he injured himself falling
through rotten floorboards while doing carpentry at an inn. He hasn't worked
since.
He now lives in one end of a cluttered old trailer in Hartford, Maine, 60
miles north of Portland.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Ricker has two college degrees. As a
younger man he worked as an electronics repairman, a pastor and a TV
cameraman. He and his first wife had seven children.
Now he receives food stamps, gets donations from a local food pantry and
drives an 18-year-old car with 198,000 miles.
For a treat, he goes out to lunch at a cafe in a nearby town — about once
every two months.
"I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't chew and I don't go with girls that
do," Ricker said. "In other words, on that income you don't do very much
outside the home."
After finishing high school in 1956, Ricker earned an associate degree in
electronics engineering and went to work selling and repairing marine
electronics.
He later earned a theology degree and served as a pastor at churches in New
Hampshire and Vermont. But times were hard on a pastor's salary, so he
returned to Maine, eventually becoming a cameraman and studio engineer for a
TV station.
After being laid off in the 1980s, he was hired to do some carpentry for an
inn. His first day on the job, the floorboards gave way.
With his injuries, he could no longer tend to the three-unit apartment house
he and his wife owned. They sold it, bought a used trailer for $7,000 and
settled on a lot in Hartford, a town of about 1,000 people.
Ricker and his second wife, Judith Odyssey, divorced around 1995 and she
moved out. But he offered to let her move back in nine years ago when she
was going through a rough time, and she now lives in the other end of the
trailer. She gets $674 a month in Social Security.
Besides his back and shoulder injuries, Ricker has diabetes, eye and
breathing problems, and his hands shake. Odyssey has congestive heart
problems, asthma and arthritis.
It's hard to make ends meet. Rent for the lot is $150 a month; Ricker has to
buy insurance and gas for his minivan and pay bills for electricity and a
phone.
He shops at a discount grocery store, gets canned goods from a food pantry,
scours garage sales for clothes.
It cost $3,200 last winter to heat the poorly insulated trailer with
kerosene, which was partially offset with about $1,000 in heating assistance
funds.
Inside the trailer, ceiling tiles are coming loose and electrical wires
dangle in the bathroom where a light fixture once hung. An old dryer, a
mattress, a snow blower, discarded chairs and other junk are strewn about
outside.
Still, Ricker keeps his sense of humor.
"I'm sorry I make jokes at everything," Ricker said. "But it's the only way
to keep going."
By Clarke Canfield
___
BROKE — AND FACING THE UNEXPECTED
Until a few months ago, Brandi Wells lived paycheck to paycheck. She was
poor, but she got by. Now, the 22-year-old lives "penny to penny."
Wells started working as a waitress at 17 and continued when she got
pregnant last year. She worked until the day she delivered 10-month-old son
Logan, she says, and came back a week later. But finding child care was a
challenge, and about three months ago, after one too many missed shifts, she
was fired.
In no time, she was homeless. The subsidized apartment in Kingwood, W.Va.,
that had cost her only $36 a month came with a catch: She had to have a job.
Without one — and with no way to pay her utilities — she was evicted.
Logan went to live with his grandmother in another town while Wells stayed
with a friend for three weeks in a filthy house with no running water.
"I didn't realize that it could go so bad so fast," she says now. "I was
working. I was trying. I felt like I was doing everything I could. But
everyone was saying I needed to do more.
"They say, 'It's your fault. You don't need to live off the government,'"
Wells says. "For some people, yes, it is their fault. ... I didn't deserve
to lose my job. I worked as hard as I could."
Wells filed for assistance from the state human resource department and got
three free nights at a low-budget motel and $50 for gas to hunt for a new
job. It didn't last long.
"The way it is now, you can't hardly find a job," she says. "I've applied
here, there, everywhere."
Eventually, Wells and her fiance, Thomas McDaniel, found a two-bedroom
apartment. After a few weeks, its walls and floors remain bare. The only
furniture is in the living room — an old green sofa, a foam twin mattress,
a play pen stuffed with toys.
Rent is $400 a month, and Wells is hoping that since McDaniel has just
landed a job at Subway, they'll be able to afford it.
For now, her income consists of the $300 a month the state pays her to
attend a daily self-sufficiency class, the $30 or so she earns at a bar once
or twice a week, food stamps, and the $96 a month in child support she gets
from Logan's father — "barely enough for diapers and wipes."
She gets help from the Raymond Wolfe Center, where she can pick up a week's
worth of food once a month. And she's grateful for her class, which is
teaching her how to manage her money and distinguish wants from needs.
She knew the difference before, she says. As a new mom, she just didn't care.
"I was in the stage where I wanted to give Logan everything ... and I couldn
't afford it," she says. "And it caused me to be broke."
Wells says she's motivated to get back on track: "I want to get out of these
low-income apartments. I want an actual house for my son. I want a car that
's not on the verge of breaking down."
She's hoping her typing skills will lead to a secretarial job. Long term,
she wants to go to college and eventually work as a mortician.
"It's a job you can't lose, she says with a grin. "They don't run out of
business, generally."
But as if the odds weren't already stacked against her, Wells has two more
challenges.
She needs to answer for speeding tickets she couldn't afford to pay. That
resulted in a suspended license, further limiting her ability to look for
work.
And, unexpectedly, she's pregnant.
"I've never been into the idea of abortion ...," she says, her voice
trailing off. "Me and my fiance are talking about it. I don't know what we'
re going to do."
By Vicki Smith
___
A GROWING BOY HAS TO EAT, BUT HOW?
Wearing a navy blue pea coat, her eyelids dusted with shimmery shadow,
Pamela Gray looked as though she was headed into work. Instead, she was
standing in line at a Manhattan food pantry, where hundreds of people waited
patiently to fill suitcases with groceries or meet with a social worker.
Going on a year without a job, Gray likes to rise early and ride the subway
down from the Bronx to visit the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, New York
's largest food pantry, which is tucked inside a church basement.
"When I was working as a home attendant, I had a check every week. So you
know, the food thing wasn't a problem," said Gray, a single mother of three
teens who was injured while caring for an elderly woman last year and had to
quit her job. "But when you don't work like you used to every day — you
don't know that you have the money — you have to go pick up food where you
can."
Gray, 47, was meeting with the center's social workers about paying off $12,
000 in student loans from Bronx Community College, where she earned a
bachelor's degree. Her only source of income for now is occasional money
from selling Mary Kay makeup and a couple of paychecks a year when she pulls
shifts as an elections worker.
It's been hard on her 14-year-old son, who is growing fast and likes to eat.
A lot.
"He likes Chinese food, chicken with broccoli, and then he likes his pizza,"
she said, laughing. "Yesterday I give him his $3.50 for lunch and tell him
next week, you know, see what happens."
Gray made a follow-up appointment with a counselor — promising to bring the
necessary paperwork next time — and then headed back onto the street. She
walked to another church a few blocks away, where a woman was handing out
free coffee and sandwiches.
She put the sandwich in her purse and settled down on the church steps to
enjoy her coffee before heading to a public library. That's where she spends
most of her time — using the computer, applying for jobs, devouring books.
"I'm reading this one, they talking about sentencing in prison," she said,
tapping the cover. "I really like to read on child issues and stuff. But if
they don't have it, I get another book."
And she waits for that long-awaited job offer to come through. She is
optimistic about the latest one: a position working with children at a
juvenile home. After all, she says, she has a certificate in child care from
New York University.
"I think I'm gonna get it," she said, a smile spreading across her face. "I'
ve been trying. I don't give up. I keep trying."
By Meghan Barr
___
'THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR'
The walls in Monique Brown's public-housing apartment have only a few
decorations, sheets cover the windows and the cupboards are mostly empty.
But it's a big step up nonetheless.
Until a few weeks ago, the 30-year-old single mom and her four children,
ages 2 to 9, were homeless and staying in a Salvation Army shelter in
downtown Birmingham, Ala.
Brown was married, living in Florida and working two jobs — one in a hotel
laundry, the other at a retail store — when the recession hit. Today, those
seem like the good old days.
"I never really had to worry about food and the basic necessities because I
knew there was always a paycheck coming in a week," she said.
Brown lost both jobs in 2008 and split with her husband, forcing a move to
Alabama to live with her brother and his family. An arrangement that was
supposed to last for a couple months stretched to a year because Brown wasn'
t able to find work, and the strain was soon showing on her brother's
household. Fearful for his marriage, Brown and her children took refuge in
the shelter.
"It was the best option for us because they could have their own beds, they
didn't have to sleep on the floor," she said. "I didn't want them to get the
full effect of being homeless."
While her three boys went to elementary school, Brown cared for her 2-year-
old daughter and sought work. She wasn't picky, but nothing turned up.
Still jobless, Brown found out about a public housing unit last month in the
Birmingham suburb or Fairfield. With the Salvation Army paying her deposits
and purchasing furniture and some appliances for her, Brown was able to
swing a place of her own using $573 a month in disability payments for one
of her sons, food stamps and donations.
Brown has been able to save about $100 and she's still looking for work. But
finding a job is difficult because she has to balance potential work
schedules against her children's schedules and the high cost of day care.
"Right now I'm just taking small steps," she said.
By Jay Reeves
___
THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD ...
Nearly two years ago, on the day after a vacation, Tim Cordova was laid off
from his job as a manager at a McDonald's. At the time, he and his wife,
Sandra, an employee at a Subway restaurant, lived in a two-story house in
the Albuquerque suburb of Ventana Ranch.
As the economy worsened in New Mexico, one of the nation's poorest states,
Cordova struggled to find work and his wife's hours were slashed until she,
too, was laid off.
They moved to a smaller house, then to a small apartment. By this June,
unemployment benefits had run out and they resorted to living out of their
Ford Focus.
"I was searching for jobs while I was collecting unemployment, and I could
not get hired at all," said Cordova, 41, who is now living with his wife at
an emergency homeless shelter called Joy Junction.
Sandra Cordova said her job search also has been fruitless.
Jeremy Reynalds, founder and CEO of Joy Junction, said he's never seen such
high levels of homelessness and poverty in his 25 years of running the
shelter, now New Mexico's largest.
"Demand is going higher, and higher, and higher," he said. "I mean, it
really is scary."
Just a few years ago, the shelter was averaging around 100 residents a night
. Now, Reynolds says, it's regularly filled with 300 every evening, and
people are turned away every day.
The Cordovas said they see their situation as a "test from God" and are
taking advantage of Joy Junction's life-skills programs. Sandra Cordova is
taking computer classes and Tim is helping with shelter security. Both said
they are not ashamed of their situation; they've even invited their
grandchildren to visit the shelter.
"I just want another house. I just want another job," said Tim. "I want to
prove that I can do it the right way."
Reynalds said donations to the shelter are down, but more people are helping
out in person.
"More people are opting to volunteer," said Reynalds, "because I think they
know that are a paycheck or two away from being homeless themselves."
By Russell Contreras | m*****5
发帖数: 23482 | | j**4
发帖数: 10425 | 3 nv3 ren2 jia4 ren2 le, jiu4 zhi3 zhi1 dao4 lao3 gong1 ah, er2 zi3 ah, nv3
er2 de...
wo3 zhi1 suo3 yi3 neng2 gou4 xing1 you3 shi4 jie4, jiu4 shi4 ying1 wei2 wo3
mei2 jie2 hun1, ye3 bu4 xiang3 zhe yao4 jie2 hun1
【在 m*****5 的大作中提到】
: 人生就是水深火热，嫁不嫁人都是如此
| m****s
发帖数: 8992 | 4 you have some very good point here
wo3
【在 j**4 的大作中提到】
: nv3 ren2 jia4 ren2 le, jiu4 zhi3 zhi1 dao4 lao3 gong1 ah, er2 zi3 ah, nv3
: er2 de...
: wo3 zhi1 suo3 yi3 neng2 gou4 xing1 you3 shi4 jie4, jiu4 shi4 ying1 wei2 wo3
: mei2 jie2 hun1, ye3 bu4 xiang3 zhe yao4 jie2 hun1
| k********a
发帖数: 7225 | 5 Ah! Na4 wo3 men zhi3 lian4 ai4 bu4 jia4 ren2 bah.
xiang3 zhe yao4 jia4 ren2.
★ Sent from iPhone App: iReader Mitbbs Lite 7.28
【在 j**4 的大作中提到】
: xiang3 zhe yao4 jia4 ren2. ni3 men2 kan4 kan4 zhe4 shi4 jie4 shang4 you3
: duo1 shao3 ren2 sheng1 huo2 zai4 shui3 sheng1 huo3 re4 zhi1 zhong1 !!!
: =====================================================================
: At a food pantry in a Chicago suburb, a 38-year-old mother of two breaks
: into tears.
: She and her husband have been out of work for nearly two years. Their house
: and car are gone. So is their foothold in the middle class and, at times,
: their self-esteem.
: "It's like there is no way out," says Kris Fallon.
: She is trapped like so many others, destitute in the midst of America's
| V*****8
发帖数: 33122 | 6 我要是男的，看见把嫁人当口号喊的女人，肯定躲的远远的，这被缠上了多麻烦。 | m****s
发帖数: 8992 | 7 Stealth 的更厉害。
【在 V*****8 的大作中提到】
: 我要是男的，看见把嫁人当口号喊的女人，肯定躲的远远的，这被缠上了多麻烦。
| m*****5
发帖数: 23482 | | m****s
发帖数: 8992 | 9 哈哈
【在 m*****5 的大作中提到】
: 结不结婚，都要用INPUTKING.COM
| m*****5
发帖数: 23482 | 10
wo3
不对
很多人结婚前就心怀世界，结婚以后仍然心怀世界
大多数女人结婚前就不心怀世界，所以急急忙忙想结婚，结婚以后继续不心怀世界
【在 j**4 的大作中提到】
: nv3 ren2 jia4 ren2 le, jiu4 zhi3 zhi1 dao4 lao3 gong1 ah, er2 zi3 ah, nv3
: er2 de...
: wo3 zhi1 suo3 yi3 neng2 gou4 xing1 you3 shi4 jie4, jiu4 shi4 ying1 wei2 wo3
: mei2 jie2 hun1, ye3 bu4 xiang3 zhe yao4 jie2 hun1
| H*********S
发帖数: 22772 | 11 u r killing me
有很多在线中文输入法，比如我用的sevenforks.com
wo3
【在 j**4 的大作中提到】
: nv3 ren2 jia4 ren2 le, jiu4 zhi3 zhi1 dao4 lao3 gong1 ah, er2 zi3 ah, nv3
: er2 de...
: wo3 zhi1 suo3 yi3 neng2 gou4 xing1 you3 shi4 jie4, jiu4 shi4 ying1 wei2 wo3
: mei2 jie2 hun1, ye3 bu4 xiang3 zhe yao4 jie2 hun1
|
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