The Faces of Poverty in North Carolina

Gene R. Nichol

Description

More than 1.5 million North Carolinians today live in poverty. More than one in five are children. Behind these sobering statistics are the faces of our fellow citizens. This book tells their stories. Since 2012, Gene R. Nichol has traveled the length of North Carolina, conducting hundreds of interviews with poor people and those working to alleviate the worst of their circumstances. In an afterword to this new edition, Nichol draws on fresh data and interviews with those whose voices challenge all of us to see what is too often invisible, to look past partisan divides and preconceived notions, and to seek change. Only with a full commitment as a society, Nichol argues, will we succeed in truly ending poverty, which he calls our greatest challenge.

Sujets

• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Homelessness
• Poverty

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469666174
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE FACES OF POVERTY IN NORTH CAROLINA
The Faces of Poverty in North Carolina
STORIES FROM OUR INVISIBLE CITIZENS
Gene R. Nichol
REVISED EDITION WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CHAPEL HILL
This book was published with the assistance of the BLYTHE FAMILY FUND of the University of North Carolina Press.
2018, 2021 Gene R. Nichol
All rights reserved
Designed by Richard Hendel
Set in Utopia, Aller, and Bunday Sans
by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
ISBN 978-1-4696-6613-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) |
ISBN 978-1-4696-6617-4 (ebook)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:
Names: Nichol, Gene R., 1951- author.
Title: The faces of poverty in North Carolina : stories from our invisible citizens / Gene R. Nichol.
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018021266 | ISBN 978-1-4696-4652-7 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4696-4653-4 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH : Poor-North Carolina. | Poverty-North Carolina. | North Carolina-Economic conditions-21st century. | North Carolina-Social conditions-21st century.
Classification: LCC HC 107. N 8 N 57 2018 | DDC 362.509756-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018021266
For my girls-
Glenn, Jesse, Jenny, Soren, and Belle
CONTENTS
List of Tables, Maps, and Graphs
A Preface from the Woods of Hickory
1 Poverty, Equality, and North Carolina s Greatest Challenge
2 Poor Kids, Education, and Hardship in North Carolina
3 Going Hungry in North Carolina
4 Inequality in Health
5 Charlotte: Concentrated Poverty and Low-Wage Work
6 Goldsboro: Isolation and Marginalization in Eastern North Carolina
7 Wilkes County and Mountain Poverty
8 Immigrants and Dreamers: Undocumented Students and Higher Education in North Carolina
9 Race and Poverty in North Carolina
10 From Targeting Poor People to a Politics of Full Membership
Afterword
Acknowledgments
A Note on Method
Notes
Index
TABLES, MAPS, AND GRAPHS
TABLES
1 Economically distressed census tracts in North Carolina
2 Industries with largest employment gains, 1994-2014
MAPS
1 Health insurance coverage by county
2 Poverty by census tract, Mecklenburg County, 2000
3 Poverty by census tract, Mecklenburg County, 2014
4 Percent black and Hispanic by census tract, Mecklenburg County, 2000
5 Percent black and Hispanic by census tract, Mecklenburg County, 2014
6 School report card grade and poverty rate by census tract
7 Concentrated poverty census tracts
GRAPHS
1 Percent change in mean household income by quintile, Mecklenburg County
2 Percent of black households by income, Charlotte/Mecklenburg County
3 Percent of white households by income, Charlotte/Mecklenburg County
4 Poverty rate by age group, Charlotte/Mecklenburg County
5 Poverty rate by race/ethnicity, Charlotte/Mecklenburg County
6 Child poverty rate by race/ethnicity, Charlotte/Mecklenburg County
7 Employment by industry, Mecklenburg County
8 Employment by occupation, Mecklenburg County
9 Percent of population by race, Goldsboro/Wayne County
10 Population by race, Goldsboro, 1980-2016
11 Percent of residents with bachelor s degree or higher, Goldsboro/Wayne County
12 Median household income, Goldsboro/Wayne County, 1980-2016
13 Poverty rate, Goldsboro/Wayne County, 1970-2016
14 Percent of poverty, Goldsboro/Wayne County
15 Poverty rate by age group, Goldsboro/Wayne County
16 Level of education, Wilkes County
17 Median household income, Wilkes County, 1969-2016
18 Poverty rate by decade, Wilkes County, 1970-2016
19 Age-adjusted drug poisoning deaths per 100,000, by county
20 United States and North Carolina poverty rates, 1960-2016
A PREFACE FROM THE WOODS OF HICKORY
It s hard not to be taken with Hickory, North Carolina, at least on first blush. Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, west of North Carolina s urban piedmont, Hickory s 40,000 residents can boast of broad avenues, a quaint city center, impressive museums, welcoming neighborhoods, massive and well-attended churches, a fine private university, tranquil country roads, and an appealing natural environment with endless outdoor recreational opportunities. Sheltering mountains typically produce moderate winters and cooler summers. Prices are modest. 1 Hickory has the look of an older, easier Carolina. Even the name appeals.
Hickory has been repeatedly recognized as an All-American city. The town website notes that Reader s Digest designated it one of the ten best places in the country to live and raise a family. Money magazine has posted similar accolades. Forbes praised its decidedly low cost of doing business. Hickory casts itself as the banking, commercial, and medical hub of a 350,000-person metropolitan area famed for its furniture and hosiery industries. More recently, telecommunication powerhouses have helped produce much of the world s supply of fiber-optic cables. Its hopeful slogan is Life Well Crafted. 2
Hickory has also, in the last fifteen years, experienced immensely trying economic times.
The pressures and alterations of global trade have hit hard. Furniture and textile jobs, much of the core of Hickory s economy, disappeared with velocity after the North American Free Trade Agreement took hold. The Washington Post would write in 2009 that global trade has overwhelmed this manufacturing (hub) beside the Blue Ridge. 3 The region has lost more jobs to international competition than just about anywhere in the nation. 4 Mills closed, the number of factories dwindled, and even newer fiber-optic plants experienced massive layoffs. The harsh tides of the Great Recession then piled on with a vengeance. In 2000, Hickory s unemployment rate was a scant 2.8 percent-well below state and national averages. By 2010, it had soared to a breathtaking 15.5 percent-the steepest rise in North Carolina and one of the four or five sharpest municipal unemployment increases in the nation. Over the same period, Hickory s poverty rate almost doubled (from 11 to 20 percent). Its median income dropped precipitously. 5
In 2011, a Wall Street publication listed Hickory as one of ten cities that would take more than a decade to recover from the recession. 6 USA Today later deemed it the eighth worst city in America to try to find a job. Business Insider included Hickory on its purported listing of the most miserable cities in the nation. A Gallup Poll in 2014 reported even more demoralizing results. 7 Great numbers of residents lost their jobs, their savings, their homes, and, it seems, their prospects. A small, bucolic manufacturing mecca had become an economic disaster zone. And while some indicators have improved in recent years, the crisis remains substantial. 8
For the first time, in the last decade homelessness has become a daunting problem in the small North Carolina city. The Salvation Army Shelter of Hope is pressed well beyond its capacity. As a result, some 200 to 250 wounded souls live in the woods surrounding town. They patch together makeshift cardboard lean-tos and dilapidated tents, keeping a wary eye for police and complaining neighbors. Some camp setups are simple, little more than a milk crate for seating and a tarp to fend off the rain. Others string together more intricate, if feeble and often porous, designs. Many campers gather in groups, though the safer course, they indicate, seems to be huddling in smaller, less attention-provoking numbers.
In summer, the camps bear the oppressive markers of the South: intense heat, draining humidity, sudden rainstorms, relentless mosquitoes, yellow jackets, gnats, and snakes. In winter, snow and frost pose distinct and direct dangers. More than one homeless struggler has perished against the cold. 9 About a third of those living out are women. Some are kids-though their parents, fearing abuse and neglect proceedings at the hands of the state, work hard to hide them. All share conditions and perils that are deplorable. Their circumstances make it hard to remember Hickory is an All-American City and even tougher to recall that the United States is the richest major nation on earth.
Roger Cornett and the fifteen or so volunteers of the Open Door Homeless Relief Project-run out of the basement of a tiny Baptist church in nearby Conover-spend much of their days and nights, and almost all of their resources, trying to keep people living in the woods of Hickory whole, safe, well, warm, and alive. Cornett is a sixty-four-year-old retired businessman who suffers from the debilitating neuromuscular disorder myasthenia gravis. Some days his illness makes it hard for him to leave the house, or even the bedroom. Particularly on those days, his wife, Janice, works enthusiastically to fill the gap. But on most, Roger Cornett joins early mornings and late nights, tapping a remarkable reservoir of energy and stamina. He doesn t look the part of the heart-on-the-sleeve-do-gooder as he crisscrosses the county in a battered pickup, NRA sticker prominently displayed. But Cornett and his seemingly fearless cohorts venture into often-dangerous campgrounds distributing tents, tarps, food, cookstoves, utensils, propane cylinders, blankets, trash bags, clothing, portable heaters, and even dog food. I never took well to retirement, Cornett explains. I couldn t believe people we