Reply #160: In my job, I often work with children of poor people, and a woman who I

[phylny]

work with closely (she works part-time because she has little children to take care of, and no support from their father) is also poor. She describes herself as poor, it is not my label. We both worked in a house of a family that was poor and on public assistance. The public housing apartment, which was previously spotless and roach-free, was often utterly dirty, smelly, and roach-infested. My co-worker's comment was this:

"I'm poor. A bottle of ammonia costs 89 cents, and a bar of soap is no more than one dollar." According to my co-worker, being poor isn't an excuse for being dirty. She is poor and her apartment is clean, and so are her kids and their clothes.

I bought roach motels for the family we worked with, an area rug to cover the living room linoleum floor which was too cold for the kids in the winter, gave them a vacuum, extra vacuum bags, a broom and a mop. The place continued to be disgustingly dirty.

I know that it's more than being "poor" in a case like this - the entire family was dysfunctional and uneducated - but honestly, the smell of diapers left to sit in a corner, of food that was spilled as kids walked around eating, of garbage left in the kitchen, and the sticky, stained rug that I had bought only six months previously tells a story that is very sad.