THE FACE OF POVERTY: WE DON'T SEE IT

posted by Michael Chihak

A decade ago, a Tucson politician set out to do something about poverty.

The politician took aim at the poor people who populated traffic medians at city intersections, where they stationed themselves each day trying to cadge spare change from motorists.

They were a raggedy bunch in worn clothing, with sunbaked skin and unkempt hair. They were the very visible face of poverty in Tucson, and not a pretty face at that.

So this politician, on the pretext of concern for their safety, began a drive to get them off the medians. In a few months time, six of the seven City Council members voted to ban solicitation of motorists from medians.

The panhandlers quickly disappeared from the medians. They weren’t gone, though. They were simply out of sight, out of mind, at least in the city of Tucson.

They were too messy to deal with, perhaps because they reminded us that we’re a society less egalitarian than we care to admit.

That was a decade ago. Today, we likely have more poor people among us. But where are they?

Not on city medians. Rather, in line at food banks, which are overwhelmed with requests. At homeless shelters that don’t have enough room. Waiting for meals at soup kitchens where resources are stretched thin.

Governmental help is minimal. Arizona’s Department of Economic Security has closed 10 offices around the state, cut cash assistance to poor families by 20 percent and reduced the amount of time families are eligible for assistance, knocking 14,000 households off the list.

These statistics are not enough for us to know the pain, to recognize that we’re a society in which people who need help aren't getting it, although they ought to. For that, we need to see the face of poverty.

Ten years ago, we in Tucson chose to let our politicians hide that face. And now, many of us have forgotten what it looks like.