That Vicious Cycle of Poverty

At face value, a recent study clearly shows Section 8 housing participants are arrested at a higher rate than other renters and homeowners in Dubuque. Even before the study was released, waiting list preferences were tightened and the types of crimes resulting in dismissal from the rental voucher program had increased. But there is more to Section 8. With three part-time jobs and two children -- one with a medical condition that requires frequent trips to Iowa City -- Shannon Backeburg and Matt Murray live in a small but comfortable apartment in Dubuque's Point area with assistance from the Section 8 voucher program.

Ermina Soler lives in a downtown apartment with her three children, attends college and works part time with Americorps. Without Section 8, Soler said she wouldn't even entertain the long-term goals she now has, let alone pursue them.

"That vicious cycle of poverty is always your daily need, whether it's food or diapers or paying an electrical bill," Soler said. "Once that need is met, then you move on to the next."

All three are aware of the stigma attached to Section 8 and recognize there are people who abuse the program. They also know firsthand the stability rental vouchers provide to their lives and to the lives of their children. "Section 8 has gotten a lot of negative publicity," Backeberg said. "There are two sides to every story."

Poverty is a lifestyle Soler learned growing up in New York City, where she said Section 8 and other government programs are taken for granted as a part of existence. She first moved to Dubuque more than 10 years ago with the father of her two oldest children, now 13 and 12. When that relationship ended, she moved to Puerto Rico. Though she had lived here just a short time, Dubuque had made an impression. Soler was seven months pregnant when she and her children moved back to Dubuque about three years ago. At the time, she relied solely on $495 per month from the Family, Infant and Preschool Program and waited to move from the Section 8 waiting list to the voucher program.

"I paid my own rent, which at the time was $420," Soler said. "What I had left over was not enough to pay the bills. I was barely making it, but Dubuque has a lot of community resources that help people who have temporary needs." With the help of Section 8, she pays her bills and has enough for phone and Internet service. She makes no apologies for purchasing those "luxury" items.

"Having the Internet is essential for me," Soler said. "I can study at home and sometimes work from home. Before I had the Internet, I had to use NICC's computer lab and spend more time away from home and my children. Financially, Section 8 means everything. It's a tool to help me get on my feet and pursue my options."

Backeberg and Murray's 10-month-old son was born with gastroschisis, a birth defect in which a hole develops in the abdominal wall that allows the bowels to protrude outside of the body. It occurs in about 1 of every 2,000 births. It requires surgery, and full recovery is likely, but complications can occur.

"We have to take him to Iowa City all the time and that would be hard to do without Section 8," Backeberg said. "We can get out and do a lot of things with the kids and take them places, which we wouldn't be able to do without it." Backeberg works part time at Dollar General and at Perkins. Murray works part time at Save-A-Lot food store stocking shelves. They have been receiving Section 8 for about one year and expect to remain on it for at least another year until their son won't require regular visits to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. They also plan to take part in the first-time homebuyer program, which directs a portion of their rent toward a savings account they can use as a downpayment on a house.

A recent study conducted for the Housing and Community Development Department by Alta Vista Research showed 21.9 percent of all arrests occur at Section 8 addresses, a disproportionate number since Section 8 makes up only 3.9 percent of addresses in Dubuque.

That number of arrests, however, is rivaled by the 20.3 percent of arrestees who claim out-of-town addresses or no permanent address. Those numbers suggest a deeper issue. Some say calls to severely limit or even eliminate Section 8 vouchers superficially address them.

"If people think taking away Section 8 would stop people from coming here, they're wrong," Soler said. "Crime would go up tremendously. You already have people in the community who don't have enough money to meet their daily needs. The downtown district here is safe and clean during the daytime and that would change."

Soler said people from big cities move to smaller towns because programs that are overwhelmed in their cities are available. In her experience, life in Dubuque gives her an opportunity to improve her situation in ways she could only dream of in New York, with its high cost of living and mean streets.

"It's amazing to me that I can go to school here," Soler said. "Lack of education is a problem for so many people. You would be surprised at how many would jump at the chance if they just had the opportunity."

The Chicago Housing Authority's voucher waiting list is about 58,000. To put that in perspective, that's the equivalent of every man, woman and child in Dubuque seeking rental assistance, but not receiving it. In September, Chicago news outlets reported 100 people waited overnight outside of a South Side community center because they heard the waiting list would open in the morning. They waited in vain. The waiting list, closed in 2008, remained closed. It was all a rumor. Nearly 250,000 people signed up for a recent lottery-style drawing to get on the list.

Chicago's Section 8 problems were exacerbated long before the recent recession. The city's $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation began in 1999. The idea was to replace the city's notorious high-rise subsidized housing with apartment units spread throughout the city, which in theory would prevent pockets of poverty from forming. The city tore the high-rises down with the promise that all the units would be replaced by 2009. In 2010, only 35 percent of those units have been replaced. The latest time line calls for replacing them by 2015 -- if the economy improves.

Each family evicted from one of the high-rises automatically moved to the top of the Section 8 waiting list, with a temporary voucher in hand. That left many people, perhaps thousands, who have no ties to the program with fewer affordable housing options.

While the Plan for Transformation's failure has been felt in many Chicago suburbs, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, it has impacted eastern Iowa as well.

"Chicago and California are the primary source areas for cocaine coming into eastern Iowa. Most of the crack cocaine in eastern Iowa is sold by African-American traffickers, supplied by street gangs out of Chicago.

... Many Chicago residents have been displaced as a result of low-income housing projects being torn down and have now settled in Iowa. This population shift has provided Chicago-based gang members cover and protection for their gang activities, including the trafficking of controlled substances."

The Chicago Housing Authority has faced widespread criticism because of the plan's implementation. Rumors that Chicago housing staff members recommend people seeking assistance move to eastern Iowa and Dubuque persist. Marilyn Katz, one of Chicago's most well-known public relations consultants, answered a request for an interview with a Chicago Housing Authority official.

Katz said that of the 4,000 people displaced by the Plan for Transformation, only 116 left Chicago. Those numbers do not take into account the housing shortage the plan created, which affected people beyond the program's reach.

"There is no policy to send people to Dubuque or anywhere else," Katz said. "It's time to put that urban myth to bed. People are going to live where ever they want to live."

Soler doesn't see eliminating Section 8 as the answer to Dubuque's crime problem, although she understands why people have connected the two. She believes more programs and more assistance are needed for those moving to town from somewhere else.

"You have to understand that people coming here for benefits are coming here from that poverty level," Soler said. "When people are in poverty they tend to do intense things to meet their monetary needs. But if you take away their crutches, they will find something to walk with."

Soler graduated from the Family Self-Sufficiency Center's "Gettin' Ahead in a Just Gettin' by World," program and learned some techniques that have enabled her to set the crutches of poverty aside. She'll begin leading a new class when it forms in February.

The "Gettin' Ahead" curriculum deals with the life skills people in poverty learn to survive and compares how those skills differ and sometimes conflict with the skills needed to survive in middle class society. It's tough talk at times, but Soler is a true believer in the program's benefits, which she said opened her eyes and the eyes of many others to life's possibilities rather than the roadblocks.

"It focuses on poverty as a systemic whole and helps people build resources so they can plan realistic goals for the future and not stay stuck in the poverty rut that kind of spins around in circles," Soler said.

Her AmeriCorps work entails tracking "Gettin' Ahead" graduates to build a database, which can be used to show potential benefactors of the program's positive effects. She claims the program has reduced the city's homeless rate because many of its graduates come from area shelters such as Maria House and the Dubuque Rescue Mission.

"They have moved out of those temporary shelters and are taking steps toward self-sufficiency," Soler said. Soler's goal is to transfer her credits from NICC to Loras College and major in education. She would like nothing better than to land a good job and put government assistance behind her forever.

"I could leave that for someone else who needs it," Soler said. "If Section 8 was used like that it wouldn't be frowned upon by the community."

Backeberg and Murray are working and waiting for their financial situation to improve. Competition for full-time employment is fierce in today's economy, which makes Section 8 vouchers even more valuable. Housing departments nationwide are reporting people are staying on the program longer and waiting lists are bulging. Additional funding from Washington is not forthcoming.

Michelle Brown, director of Opening Doors, which operates Theresa Shelter and Maria House for homeless women in Dubuque, said her clients are required to apply for Section 8 when they move in. She said only about one-third of those women ever receive it because they move on before a voucher becomes available. She said the Housing Department recently advised her that the average wait could increase from two years to four years if the current trend continues. The debate about Section 8 and rental housing in general has been a prime topic of the Safe Community Task Force, which was formed after two murders occurred in less than a month last summer.

As far as Soler, Backeberg and Murray are concerned, eliminating or reducing Section 8 isn't the answer city leaders are seeking.

So much here, crime;

A recent study conducted for the Housing and Community Development Department by Alta Vista Research showed 21.9 percent of all arrests occur at Section 8 addresses, a disproportionate number since Section 8 makes up only 3.9 percent of addresses in Dubuque.

That number of arrests, however, is rivaled by the 20.3 percent of arrestees who claim out-of-town addresses or no permanent address.

Chicago?

The Chicago Housing Authority's voucher waiting list is about 58,000.

...In September, Chicago news outlets reported 100 people waited overnight outside of a South Side community center because they heard the waiting list would open in the morning. They waited in vain. The waiting list, closed in 2008, remained closed. It was all a rumor. Nearly 250,000 people signed up for a recent lottery-style drawing to get on the list.

The city's $1.6 billion Plan for Transformation began in 1999. The idea was to replace the city's notorious high-rise subsidized housing with apartment units spread throughout the city, which in theory would prevent pockets of poverty from forming. The city tore the high-rises down with the promise that all the units would be replaced by 2009. In 2010, only 35 percent of those units have been replaced.

The latest time line calls for replacing them by 2015 -- if the economy improves.

Rumors that Chicago housing staff members recommend people seeking assistance move to eastern Iowa and Dubuque persist.

Drugs?

A 2008 Drug Enforcement Agency fact sheet states: "Chicago and California are the primary source areas for cocaine coming into eastern Iowa. Most of the crack cocaine in eastern Iowa is sold by African-American traffickers, supplied by street gangs out of Chicago.

... Many Chicago residents have been displaced as a result of low-income housing projects being torn down and have now settled in Iowa. This population shift has provided Chicago-based gang members cover and protection for their gang activities, including the trafficking of controlled substances."

Some people, no matter what, will never get it together. They will wallow in failure and mess up time and time again. For a lot of these people, putting them in a nice place is just creating another place for them to mess up.

I don’t know if you watched the movie “Riding in Cars With Boys,” but the main character is a perfect example of someone who simply doesn’t think before she acts. She gets pregnant by a stoner that her father told her to stay away from, bakes marijuana in her kitchen with her best friend, which results in her getting arrested by her own father, and despite all the help she’s given, she messes up one chance after another.

I mean, she never once at any point just makes the decision to either have the child and put him up for adoption into a nice family, go to California and get an education, or marry the stoner and not make a mess of the rest of her life. She’s so fixated on her ‘dream’ that she ignores her responsibilities.

Or abstain, that’s simple enough. I’ve been living in Pontiac, MI for the past two years, (long story) and the first year I managed to participate volunteering at the free health clinic for eight months, then in the summer drum up partnerships. Last year I managed to do more, rebuild my website, get more partnerships and I started self publishing.

Now, I am an American Associate with an international consulting network and finding a place to live now that I have my SSD (earned $770.00 via work credits, worked nearly five years at Meijer and a year at Fashion Bug and then worked a couple months misc. jobs) I’m looking for a better place to live.

I got those partnerships and spot with that firm through networking, taking initiative, and keeping myself together in the face of a hideous amount of obstacles. So spare me the idea that it can’t be done. I accomplished all of it with a $300.00 laptop and LinkedIn.

Amazing that the TH would allow even a bleeding-heart version of the problems in DBQ to be written! Someone high enough up in the political food chain must be getting nervous about the growing powder keg that was once confined to a small area on Bluff St but which has now metastacized. Talk to any Dubuque cop (the ones who are out and about, not the ones whose noses are up the city manager's large intestine) and you can get the skinny on the crime situation, which is steadily getting worse; it is already so bad that the diversity-centric local media - including the TH - won't report anything that can possibly be swept under the rug as long as it involves at least one of the Democrat party's "protected species."

(Some of the recent stuff - the bar and pawn shop shootings and the naughty assistant principal - have been too visible to ignore.)

The parade of people who go through the two hospitals' emergency rooms would send the little old ladies from Dubuque into gated communities if they knew about them, but the local machine does it's damnedest to keep a lid on things, including telling the local sanctimonious lefty journalists that they will not have access to anyone/anything important if they say too much.

Mr. niteowl77

What is sad is that the impoverished form the democrat base. They are exploited by the politicians for a vote. IF a child is caught spraying graffiti...make the child and the parent clean it up. Instead of providing govt lawncare and groundskeepers paid for by taxpayers...teach the tenents to do it or face consequences.
Teach and expect responsibility for govt provided housing and benefits.

There are a lot of those. But there do exist others who simply need help for a while, desperately, who will rise out of their situation at the first opportunity they can get.

If Shannon & Matt actually GOT MARRIED——would they still qualify for Section 8 Housing???

BTW: Section 8 pays up to 80% of the cost of rent. Landlords jack up their rent to the point where the actual rent cost is really paid by Section 8 and IF the other 20% gets paid by the occupant, it is extra money to pay for the increased maintenance from Section 8 Housing recipients. Most of those kinds of units are in deplorable condition all the time from lots of deliberate destruction on the part of the occupants.

Where I used to live, we managed to keep a group of Section 8 units out of the county. When pressed to give the residents in the area the EXACT number of Section 8 recipients currently in the county and how many were on a ‘waiting list’, it finally got exposed that there were very FEW such requirements in our county, and there was NO WAITING LIST. The ‘developer’ wanted serious reductions in cost of permits, taxes, etc, for his ‘dream’.

Therefore, this set of units would be supported by our county, taken care of with OUR Sheriff and judicial system, and the occupants would be drawn from as far as 3 counties away—as much as 100 miles.

After a raucous ‘town hall’ type meeting, we pretty much got his goat and he wouldn’t speak to us any longer. He actually left-—and HE had set up the ‘meet & greet’. We pressed the county commissioners harder, and got it all dropped.

We tried food stamps and WIC for about six months. We got any brand of cheese, real milk, tuna, juice, name brand breakfast cereals, fresh fruits & veggies for WIC, and food stamps could get you anything but rotisserie chickens.
It was good food but it was also embarassing, so we gave it up.

I would love to go through this woman’s fridge and see if I could scare up enough money for her rent.

My own sad story:

In 2000 I was offered a great job in the Bay Area of California. I took the job but found after being in a home for 20 years that I had to live (could only afford in CA) in a condo. The place next-door was a Section 8. My bedroom and the next door bedroom shared the same wall.

What a nightmare for 3 years I had to live with people one wall away who partied from 7PM every night till 4 AM. Needless to say I was a wreck and the cops wouldn’t help although they frequently came to arrest residents on warrants. I would look at their garbage and wonder how can people live on cheap beer and carryout pizza every day but they did. So much waste in their lives and very little actually doing anything — just parties and fun. Kids were involved and it was so sad. I had to move and buy a house I couldn’t afford but that was 2 years and then moved to Texas where I had my own space.

If Shannon & Matt actually GOT MARRIED——would they still qualify for Section 8 Housing???

That's an important question. And I suspect the answer might be that they would not because, in reality, only one of them actually holds the lease right now. In the aftermath of the misnamed Great Society, it's obvious that government programs had a perverse effect on the family life of the poor, but any effort to reaffirm the importance of marriage by privileging couples who choose it is actively discouraged by both right and left-wing types today.

For many of the people who created the social welfare network, family life was just a confining trap. This was not only because they were ideologically Marxist (as some were) but also because they were caught up in the grand magic of the Sexual Revolution. Why not “liberate” the poor from burdensome family ties, even as these young libertines themselves were becoming liberated?

The results, of course, differ. If you are poor, you live like these slobs in Section 8, making babies you can’t support as you drift from “relationship” to “relationship.” If, on the other hand, you are one of the elites, you get a status job in the Obama White House, hook up with a cute news-chick, and support the kids from all your “relationships” on government cash and connections.

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