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I saw a report on CNN that disturbed me and left me thinking for days after. The report was on middle-class women who had been forced into homelessness in part because of the current economic difficulties. And though it is entirely irrational, fear kicked in and I saw myself in the women shown living in their cars.
The women profiled live in Santa Barbara which is a ridiculously expensive place to live even by high-cost California standards. According to figures quoted in the piece, the median price of a house in Santa Barbara is over $1 million and the average cost of a studio apartment is over $1,600 a month. Barbara Harvey was a loan processor which is a job that was undoubtedly lost in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. She now lives on her earnings from an $8 an hour part-time job and social security payments. She and her two dogs live in her car which she keeps in one of the parking lots the city of Santa Barbara has designated for overnight use by the homeless even though it is illegal to sleep in a car. Barbara's lot is one just for the use of homeless women.
I was struck by how well put together the women in the piece were. One woman dropped her voice a few octaves when answering the question of what was most difficult about homelessness and answering "hygiene." Nevertheless, these women were all composed, dignified, clean and well dressed. They looked like ordinary middle-class women who could have emerged from their home not a long night in a car with no indoor plumbing. In other words, they looked like me. I could be one of them.
And this is when the fear kicked in. I am enormously fortunate that I am not impoverished and am well aware that there are millions of women in this country who have tremendous economic difficulties I do not face. And I do not mean to trivialize the issue of poverty with my whiny fears. But many middle-class women share my fears and I think they are worth examining.
One might question why the women in the CNN piece don't simply leave Santa Barbara and move to a part of the country with a lower cost of living. But their lives and families are there. It is not so simple and family and charitable safety nets are not always enough. It is increasingly clear that much of the onus for our financial security is squarely and solely on us. Leaving aside discussions and arguments about the morality of this position and the appropriate roles of employers, government and society, this reality is a driving source of our fears.
Many American women worry about becoming a "bag lady." In other words, homeless and lacking in financial resources. This leads many women to overwork themselves out of a notion that if they just work hard enough they will not suffer the fate. Or they are timid in negotiating at work out of fear of losing their job, or they invest timidly out of fear of risking their savings for higher returns which will help support them in the future. The crazy fear leads to crazy behavior which is only reinforced when we hear the constant drumbeat of bad economic news repeated in the nightly news. And when it comes up too our doorstep, happens to people who seem to share a life similar to ours, when it is no longer relegated to an "other" in the form of the abstract poor it is hard to resist the feeling of crazy.
And that is my struggle today. I am blessed. I have a roof over my head, I have food in my kitchen, I have money in the bank, I have transferable work skills and most of all I have an extensive network of family support. I will not be homeless. This I know. However, it is increasingly a reality for far too many. But perhaps I need to shut of the TV, continue to focus on keeping my net intact and spend some time and money supporting those women who are truly suffering instead of weaving my nightmare fantasies of impending life as a bag lady.
Related reading:
Michelle Kennedy at Organically Inclined writes in "One Paycheck Away -
