When the Safety Nets are Fraying
I have two kids, a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old. At dinner we have a practice of asking each other how our day was and if we learned anything interesting or exciting. The 16-year-old usually tells us something they learned about History or in Chinese. The 12-year-old tends to go through her day, class by class, and share any gossip she may have picked up in between. If it was a long day, the adults are inclined to say something like, “I learned it is hard to get my work done if I spend all day in meetings.” Sometimes, though, we give them a glimpse into the work we do and the people we work with. The other day I mentioned something about a project we are working on that involved doing a census overlay of a geographic area that had us gathering 125% of the federal poverty rate for each locality. I thought the older one, who is taking Data Analytics, might find the concept interesting. We moved along and I didn’t think too much of it, but driving to school the next day, the younger one asked me about it. It turned in to a 12-minute conversation about what the federal poverty rate is/means and some general examples of the numbers, like the most a family of four can make to qualify for government assistance is around $31,000. My kids don’t have a great grasp on how much $31,000 is but they knew that seemed unreasonable.
I have known for as long as I have been doing this work that the poverty rate is unrealistic, but it has been a minute since I really spent time looking at the numbers. I started digging in a little bit after the conversation with the kids. Googling the average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in the US pulls 2023 numbers and gives you something around $1,300/month and a Richmond specific Google gives you a 2025 statistic of $1,600-$1,800/month. So, I took $1,500 as a midway point. For a family of four to rent a 2-bedroom apartment that would be $18,000 a year. Leaving them with $13,000 for transportation, insurance, clothing, utilities, cell phone, internet, school fees, incidentals, emergencies, holidays, fun. Oh, and food - you can’t forget food. The USDA provides a range of $570-$1,300/month as the average cost of groceries for a family of four. If we assume they can scrape by at the lowest end of that range - that is $6,800/year. So, now they only have $6,200 for that long list of things everyone has to pay for. $6,200…a year.
The kids asked some good questions about why the rate is so low: whether undocumented persons were eligible to receive benefits, and what would happen if our friend who has a green card needed help? They worried about what might happen in the next few weeks and months: whether the money the government has to help people with food and housing would go away, if it was a law that couldn’t be changed, and if it went away, who would be there to help?
I had answers to most of their questions and felt like I did a good job encouraging them to come up with their own thoughts and ideas on the big stuff, but I felt myself catch a little bit on the last one. I was “saved by the bell” as it were, as we arrived at our destination and I sent them off to school with a “it will be okay.” But folks, I didn’t say that with my whole body and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. We are already in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. The safety nets are fraying and tearing under the weight of the need. Thank goodness, there is a rise in the mutual aid movement, but that historically is more of an emergency response and gap filler to the other supports. Can it rise fast enough? So, I’m left with my kiddos’ question:
“Who is going to be there to help?”
Most of our clients are nonprofit organizations and government agencies, and TSM knows many of you are already grappling with this and sharing some of the same worries. What does your strategic plan tell you to do? How can it help you make the difficult decisions?
For the foundations (community, private, corporate) – we would ask, how are you rethinking your strategies to center on serving people with the greatest need? If you have a strategic plan, how might it guide you in your decision making over the coming weeks, months, and years?
When the kids bring this back up, because they will, I think the only right answer is – it’s going to take all of us.