Theirs not to make reply,. Theirs not to reason why,. Theirs but to do and die.
I have always been lucky to have a good job. at age 20 i was supporting my mother and 4 brothers and sisters. this with a highschool education. you can say i was lucky. I somehow manged to provide for 3 kids and my wife, buy a house, my youngest one was 5 years old the first time he drank water, before it was milk or juice, to this day he wont drink water alone. i was making a good living then i got hurt about a year ago. now I am out of a job, getting worker's comp, waiting to get a surgery i need to get back to work. not even gonna get into my wife's illness. I am lucky i managed to put money into 401k's and pensions in two different companies. that's what I am living on. worker's comp dont pay crap, i make in 1 week what i used to make in 10 hours of work. when savings runs out, if i dont have that surgery, I am out on the streets.
I am caught in the middle ground between not being in poverty yet and having enough money for now to pay for my bills and yet with no insurance and with my wife's illness it wont be long. I am not the only one. I know lots of people who got caught in the same situation as me. not that we are lazy, we just get caught in situations.
it is what it is. I volunteer at a soup kitchen near where i live. I see able bodies, willing to work but because they are on the streets, it's harder to turn your life around. that's a cold fact. very few will risk giving you a job because they think you wont show up because you dont have a permanent address.
I live in a working class apartment, clean, no drugs, no gangs, no break ins, it's safe. two families where 1 husband and on the other the wife lost their jobs moved in together. the manager just turned a blind eye to it. 10 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment. when i read that the unemployment rate is only 2% or whatever it is now, it's a lie. they dont count those who cant find a job and arent on unemployment or cant get welfare. most are people that want to work but cant find a job because even minimum wage jobs have 10 or 15 people show up for 1 position. that's a fact.
invisible poverty is a reality. most people dont want handouts, they want to work. we arent living in a world of al bundy anymore where a lowly paid shoe salesman can afford to pay a mortgage and have a crappy old dodge in the garage. those times are long gone.
semp
