When Judy Gardner moved to Ann Arbor nine years ago, it was a strategic decision.
Without much money, Gardner wanted a place where her kids could be safe growing up - unlike their home in Detroit, where they slept on the floor to avoid bullets coming in the house and hitting them.
Judy Gardner moved to Ann Arbor in part because of the resources available to those living in poverty.
Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com
She found more than just safety.
“If you're not lazy and you want to be better, this is a great place to be poor,” she said.
From scholarships and camps to groups that will pay rent to help people avoid eviction, there’s no doubt Ann Arbor has many resources for those living in poverty.
But those resources are being stretched as governments cut contributions, philanthropy dries up and need increases.
“The safety net is weaker now,” said Larry Voight, president of Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County. “It’s frightening.”
The resources
Every week, Fran Deering gets requests from residents in the Green Baxter public housing site, in northeast Ann Arbor. They ask for help filling out forms to request food from the food pantry Deering keeps as the director of the Community Action Network’s community center at Green Baxter.
People even ask her for advice on how to best spend their limited money.
Recently, a resident came to Deering with a dilemma. Her car needed repairs so she could get to her job, but she couldn’t afford to make her rent that month and pay to fix her car.
Deering’s advice? Pay for the repairs.
Deering said she could find money to help cover the resident’s rent faster than she could get money for car repairs.
For hundreds living in Ann Arbor’s public housing sites, the resources offered by the Community Action Network and other groups that operate community centers are often a short walk from their apartments.
“It’s a big, bad world out there,” said Aaron Pressel, CAN’s director at the Hikone Community Center. “Here there’s a safety net. You can really slip and we’ll be there to catch you, if not for your sake than for your child.”
While those groups offer some specific services - they have emergency food pantries open to residents only - they often serve as a guide to other available resources.
Local resources can help cover rent checks, give you food, get you medical care and assist in other ways.
But the first step is going to the state’s Department of Human Services, said Bonnie Billups Jr., executive director of the Peace Neighborhood Center.
DHS runs a State Emergency Relief Program, which can help cover food, heat bills, electricity and other necessities.
The state program has also seen the strain. In August, its Food Assistance Program caseload set another record high with 751,922 households in Michigan, up 191 percent from 258,287 in January 2000.
In August, more than 17,100 of those state food assistance cases were in Washtenaw County, up from about 14,000 cases in October 2008.
Ann Arbor area residents in need say the wait to get help or even apply has gotten longer and tougher at the packed Ypsilanti DHS office. It often takes 10 days for the department to make a determination on how much, or if, it will help.
Once someone facing financial trouble gets a determination letter from DHS, local agencies can kick in to help.
An informal network of Washtenaw County agencies has developed in recent years. If one organization can’t help with utilities or food, it's able to say which agency might be able to. That's often how people looking for help make their way through the local patchwork safety net.
The formal resource for coordinating help in Ann Arbor is the 211 phone number, run by the Washtenaw United Way and staffed by Huron Valley Ambulance. The goal is to help those lacking the most basic resources get back on their feet quicker by navigating the assistance network.
One thing those seeking help don’t get is cash, said Voight. The agencies work directly with the bill-holders to make sure assistance is spent where it’s needed.
Hard to get help?
Despite the numerous agencies that exist, it can be a hassle to get help, say both those who receive aid and those who help them.
“There’s just so much paperwork, and you have to have exactly the right paperwork and be willing to wait in line for a long time,” said Ann Arbor resident Mindy Howell, 35, who has two school-age kids and has used assistance agencies in the last year. “Some of them, especially the state, don’t really want to give you any help, so they make it as hard as they can.”
Deering agrees.
“Everything works out. It’s just a pain ... getting it,” she said.
The problem?
“The system has too many people who don’t care,” said Joan Doughty, executive director of the Community Action Network. “They see themselves as guards for the system.”
Getting help can even depend on the time of year, Aaron Pressel, director of the Hikone Community Center, said.
“Christmas holidays are the worst. For two weeks, your kids are off school, so no meals for them there," Pressel said. "There’s no Food Gatherers for the food pantry. I’m not here, so no (emergency) food pantry. It’s the end of the month, so food stamps are gone.”
Voight said his agency has seen a tripling in the need for food.
“People can’t pretend they don’t need help anymore,” Deering said. “There’s nothing left to cut out their budgets.”
Some agencies are getting federal stimulus funds to help. But that’s not the answer either, said Mary Jo Callan, the director of Washtenaw County’s Community Services Department.
“A lot of the stimulus funds are aimed at the new poor (those who lost their jobs recently because of the economy)," Callan said. "It’s actually stipulated that you have to serve the most likely to succeed. That’s not always the people who need the most help.”
Hear CAN's executive director Joan Doughty describe what it's like to live on a low income in Ann Arbor.
Hard to succeed
There are those who abuse the system, Voight acknowledged, but even those who are using the system correctly often need immediate help before they can be helped out of poverty.
“If you’re really, really hungry, you’re not going to learn how to fish," Voight said. "You might spend enough time to catch a fish for that night’s dinner, but that’s about it. Once you’re really, really hungry, your brain is on overdrive to eat.”
Once people’s basic needs are met, it’s time to move on, Billups said.
“It’s about reconditioning their mind,” he said. “We’ve got to break that generational cycle.”
So Peace Neighborhood Center targets its young people. It offers several programs focused on mentoring kids to achieve in school and gain self-confidence. It puts on a summer day camp that gets kids out on trips to museums, theater performances, and the zoo to fill their idle time with experiences they might never have otherwise.
The center pushes kids to get involved in a college prep club and takes kids to local employers, job training programs, on college visits and offers support to help them.
It offers parenting classes and wellness classes to the adults, and offers incentives that encourage learning about positive personal and financial choices - all in an effort to break the cycle of poverty, Billups said.
But Gardner, who serves on CAN’s board of directors, said enabling can be a problem in Ann Arbor.
“Ann Arbor just wants to take care of these people, not teach them how to get out of poverty," Gardner said. "It’s a lot easier to just give them money than to help them make the changes they need to.”
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