los anjalis

Below is an excerpt from a beautiful reflection piece by my friend Taz. Check out the full post – God — the Policy Solution at her blog “Say What?”

The Muslim homeless couple. I know they were Muslim because the woman was wearing her head covered. They looked Arab, and in their 60s. Wrinkled and elder. This was the third time they had been at this corner. A couple of days ago they were across the street, but they had been at this corner for the past 24 hours. The first time I saw them, I almost tripped over the woman as I got out of the bus. It had been dark and I glanced down after the almost trip to see that she had a mini-grill as her source of heat. This morning I had a little more time to check out their interim home. The man was sitting on a sleeping bag, and they were flanked by two laundry carts full of their worldly goods. They had just finished their breakfast—the remnants of empty Coffee Bean cups and a canister with the Quaker Oats man was in front of them. The woman got up and started to reorganize her stuff. Out of her bundles, she pulled out a short broom and started sweeping the sidewalk in front of their belongs completely surrounded by graduate students waiting for the bus. As she swept, she had a pleasant look on her face. I wondered what could she be thinking and how she could manage to live on the streets and still maintain a pleasant look on her face. I wondered how strong of a woman she must be that under adversity, she is still able to maintain routine and create for herself a home. She glanced up. Our eyes met. She looked upon me kindly and I tentatively smiled at her. She went back to sweeping.

From “The High Cost of Being Poor” by Barbara Ehrenrich, author of the book Nickled and Dimed:

There are other tolls along the road well-traveled by the working poor. If your credit is lousy, which it is likely to be, you’ll pay a higher deposit for a phone.If you don’t have health insurance, you may end taking that feverish child to an emergency room, and please don’t think of ER’s as socialized medicine for the poor. The average cost of a visit is over $1,000, which is over ten times more than what a clinic pediatrician would charge. Or you neglect that hypertension, diabetes or mystery lump until you end up with a $100,000 problem on your hands.

So let’s have a little less talk about how the poor should learn to manage their money, and a little more attention to all the ways that money is being systematically siphoned off. Yes, certain kinds of advice would be helpful: skip the pay-day loans and rent-to-pay furniture, for example. But we need laws in more states to stop predatory practices like $50 charges for check cashing. Also, think what some microcredit could do to move families from motels and shelters to apartments. And did I mention a living wage?

I love the idea of microcredit/microlending in the United States. LOVE it. For some reason i’ve been narrow minded in my understanding of the concept – I’ve always heard of microcredit working in other countries and hadn’t thought of it as an option here, although i’m sure it’s utilized in various ways in this country. (Microcredit is essentially lending to low-income folks or folks with no credit, with the idea that a bit of assistance for a small business or a family can allow the people involved to slowly generate income and not spiral further into poverty. Microcredit organizations around the world have been extremely successful, with most or all loans paid back in full, no sharks necessary).

So, anyone down with starting a sustainable microcredit lending organization with me? The gap between hard-working low-income families in Los Angeles and the wealthy folk is ever-widening (as is happening in many communities across the country). And the homeless population in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles increased almost 200 percent in the last year. Maybe this could be a move to turn the tide a bit (and kick out some sharks).