MOUNT VERNON — Poverty, safety nets, bankruptcies and foreclosures, hungry children and the homeless were just a few of the topics discussed at Tuesday evening’s Poverty Forum in a filled-to-capacity room at the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County. The two-hour forum was sponsored by Interchurch Social Services and Knox County Democratic Women.
Mary Rugola-Dye was moderator for a panel comprised of Dirk Parker, student and family advocate for the Mount Vernon City Schools; Jennifer Odenweller, executive director of United Way; Carol Stebbins, an attorney working in bankruptcy law and foreclosures; and Joy Harris, executive director of Interchurch Social Services. Each interacts daily with Knox County residents struggling with the effects of the recession.
Harris said the ISS food pantry served 356 families each month in 2007; in 2008, more than 400 families needed help with groceries. She said the county needs more transitional housing — where families could stay for a month or more, receive guidance and training, and get back on their feet — and subsidized housing, which currently has a three- to six-month waiting list. Harris said ISS operates with one full-time staff member (Harris), 14 part-time staff and more than 100 volunteers each week.
Odenweller said United Way brings people and organizations together to serve needs.
“Our goal is to put more money toward prevention and, ultimately, less toward emergency services,” she said, explaining that prevention includes early intervention for children, financial learning, the Ohio Benefit Bank and more.
Asked if the recession is affecting United Way, Odenweller said she was glad to say no. She noted November’s record-setting Food for the Hungry drive and United Way’s record fundraising campaign in 2008, and said more volunteers are offering to help, including people who are laid off from jobs and have time to help.
Parker noted that his work will end soon, due to state funding cuts. He said his role is as a trouble-shooter or community liaison, finding help for students and their families who are in need.
“Education is the best way to end the generational cycle of poverty,” Parker said. “For a student to learn, they can’t be hungry or tired.”
Staff members notice tired and hungry children, students wearing the same clothes every day or dirty clothes, behavior changes or personality changes, and they ask questions and intervene.
Children in poverty often have no quiet place for homework, he explained, so Pleasant Street Elementary staff started a Homework Club where more than 40 children every day come in at 8 a.m. to study or read.
Asked who will take over his duties when his job ends, Parker said, “No one,” but said guidance counselors and principals will be able to help some students.
Stebbins was moved to tears when she spoke of working with families losing their homes, facing bankruptcy, discovering their mortgages were written as adjustable rate mortgages and learning that their home appraisals had been inflated. She said 759 foreclosures were filed in Knox County in 2008, and estimates that 85 percent were residential. In the first quarter of 2009, she said, 175 foreclosure suits have been filed and 6 million American families will face foreclosure in the next few years.
“The only way you can put a face on this is to cry,” said Stebbins.
She told of being unable, even with a law degree, to read some of the mortgages her clients bring to her.
“It takes me 30 minutes sometimes to understand them. I have a whole hell of a lot of education and I’m not sure I could have understood some of the mortgages people were getting. I see people who had no understanding that they have an adjustable rate mortgage that after three years was going to go to a rate they could no longer afford,” she said.
She said some people specifically requested fixed-rate mortgages but received otherwise.
“People who have never had to deal with issues relating to their finances are finally having to face them,” Stebbins said. “It’s amazing how much financial issues can trigger a whole panoply of emotional stress. And people under stress create a whole range of social problems.”
She likened the current economic problems Knox Countians are facing to a train wreck.
Audience members discussed the men’s cold-weather homeless shelter, the community garden project, the Faiths United for Families household goods collection project that is changing its name to Hope Now, and other community organizations. They suggested ideas, including a grassroots church movement to educate job-seekers and offer Internet training, and a database of translators to help those who don’t speak English.
Mary Hendrickson, executive director of New Directions Domestic Abuse Shelter, was asked if the shelter’s numbers have increased.
“We’re full all the time,” she said. “And we have to turn 30, 35 women with children away every month. We do try to find them housing elsewhere if we can’t take them.”
She said if victims of domestic violence cannot find shelter, they are sometimes forced to return to their abusers.
“Everybody in this community has one thing in common,” Parker told the audience. “You got off the couch and came here. What I would like to say is volunteer, mentor, find a child who needs help. Stay off the couch, get other people off their couches and let’s take care of each other.”
