Poverty, while difficult to define, is all around us.
Ten years after the largest economic recession since the Great Depression, our national economy is growing by leaps and bounds. Meanwhile, in rural areas with resource-based economies such as ours, that growth trickles down more slowly — drops collect into streams here and there, but not everyone gets a drink.
Lewis County is still struggling 10 years on, despite planned developments such as new grocery distribution and shopping centers, and the evidence is conspicuous in the form of homelessness, property crime, students qualifying for free school lunches and low median incomes.
Centralia City Councilor Peter Abbarno addressed this topic during a speech at Thursday’s United Way of Lewis County Community Partnership Luncheon at Great Wolf Lodge, and he gave attendees a lasting visual representation of the scale of the problem.
He first explained that 15 percent of Lewis County residents live in poverty. The number is certainly large, but seems manageable, then he asked 12 tables full of luncheon guests to stand — representing the 50 percent of Lewis County residents classified as “Asset Limited, Income Constrained yet Employed,” or ALICE.
Half of us, he explained, are just one financial burden — such as a car accident or layoff — away from homelessness.
“It touches every single one of us when we talk about poverty, when we talk about homelessness, when we talk about struggling families,” Abbarno said. “It’s going to affect every single community.”
But there’s hope, he and other speakers on Thursday said, if we start early and work together to coordinate our efforts.
That’s what United Way of Lewis County is working to do with its 30 by 2030 initiative — a goal to lift 30 percent of Lewis County residents out of poverty in the next decade.
It’s a lofty goal, and one that won’t be accomplished unless we all get on board and work in the same direction.
We must put behind the days when countless small community groups separately threw resources at a problem, hoping some solution will stick. The way to make a difference is for all of us to decide on a course of action and stick with it.
With that in mind, United Way of Lewis County has changed the way it distributes grants, focusing strategically on programs for early education, early intervention and early identification of poverty related issues.
As Abbarno illustrated on Thursday, homelessness is not a problem that affects only a select few of us. If half our community is truly one broken-down car, one rent increase, or one medical scare away from becoming homeless, that is everybody’s problem. It means we all know someone in a precarious financial position. We all know someone who might need our help someday, or we might need it ourselves.
It’s all of our responsibility to try to change that. Consider supporting the United Way or volunteering your time.
