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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels October 9, 2004 $truggling to get by By Chris Honor� and Andrew Scot Bolsinger Ashland Daily Tidings A makeshift camp under a willow tree off of A Street is abandoned by day, but the area harbors several of these camps for the homeless at night. Cradled by forested mountains and open farmland, Ashland offers a unique blend of physical beauty and an array of culture and entertainment that most towns or cities cannot equal. Ashland possesses a patina of affluence and charm that is inescapable, buttressed by the famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cabaret Theater and countless galleries, restaurants, spas, vintage stores and boutiques, all of which are framed by tree-lined streets with picturesque older homes, Southern Oregon University and the gem that is Lithia Park. Some 375,000 tourists visit Ashland every year, often leaving captivated by its charm. However, pull back this curtain of art and culture and tourism and look more closely and there is another story, one that stands in stark contrast to the affluent tourist town defined by travel writers. Contrary to popular myth, Ashland is not a town of aging retirees. Fifty-two percent of its residents are families. There is a surprisingly large number of young households, with 43 percent under 45 years old. The median household income in Ashland is $32,670, which misses the statewide mark by $8,000. Behind the curtain of affluent culture, perhaps one statistic is the most glaring: 13 percent of all families in Ashland live in poverty. The younger the family, the higher the poverty. Twenty-one percent of those with children live in poverty. Thirty-six percent with children under 5 live in poverty. Those families without husbands present make up an even starker profile: 36 percent live in poverty, and the poverty rate is 66 percent among those with children under 5. Throw it all together and a simple revealing statistic is produced that says as much about Ashland as any other. One child out of three in Ashland lives in poverty. Putting a face on poverty It is one thing to read the abstract data and examine the sterile bar graphs. It is another when the mother and child walking down the street in tattered clothes provide a face for those statistics. Their daily lives are the reality of life at the threshold of poverty. More often than not, that singular fact defines one's life, one's choices and one's daily existence. First, according to Taylor Kohn, manager of the Ashland Department of Human Services, living at the threshold level, or what is referred to as the Federal Poverty Level, means a family of three earns $15,672 and a family of four takes in $18,852. Kohn points out that many people are only a paycheck or two away from slipping into poverty. "A breadwinner for a family of three working full-time earning minimum wage, which is $7.05 per hour, is still below the FPL. You may only be taking home $800 to $900 dollars a month. Try paying rent, utilities, food, clothing, etcetera, on that. Even for a single person, it is challenging." Diane (not her real name), age 39, has three children - one an infant, one almost a teenager and a daughter who lives on her own - and a live-in partner, Frank (not his real name), a man she thinks of as her husband, though they haven't been able to afford to get married. Living with the reality of poverty, she said, makes every day so much harder. Harder to do things that other people take for granted. "We have to look for thrift stores to buy clothing, pretty much anything," she says. "I look for clothes for the baby and toys. Lots of times you have to take the stuff home and clean it up. But that's OK. We do that a lot. We look in the paper for coupons and we don't do a whole lot." Diane and Frank don't go to see plays or enjoy the fine restuarants in town. They can't afford most of the culture that exists all around them. "For recreation, we basically watch television," she says, "do things for free, go to the park, have a picnic, cook in our home and never go out to eat. We don't have air conditioning because we can't afford the electricity, so in the summers we live with the heat as best we can. Things that people don't have to think about I have to worry about." Diane works part-time as a cashier earning $8 per hour. Frank works full-time making minimum wage. They live in Ashland and pay $500 per month for rent. They expect a rent increase in the near future. Their combined monthly gross is $1,400, of which they take home of about $1,100. Each time they begin to pay their bills - utilities, car insurance, rent, food, phone and incidentals - a harsh reality smacks them like a stiff wind. There is hardly enough to take them through the month. The kids feel the sting of poverty too, she says. "I can't give my kids an allowance. They have to work for what they have. Sometimes it makes me feel bad. I try not to say we are poor, but my daughter can see it. She gets to eat a free breakfast and lunch at school. At first she felt self-conscious about it, but I think it's OK for her now. There are other kids doing the same thing." There is no room for the unexpected, for illness, for an emergency of any kind, such as car repair, or even maintenance. Diane insists that they resist the temptation to use credit cards. "I feel on the edge of despair because of the stress. The stress on our relationship. The stress of having to get by. We can't take our family and go on a vacation. Birthdays come up, Christmas, the whole gift-giving thing is hard - things cost a lot of money." Even though Diane has an associate's degree from a community college, she can't find employment that will sustain her or her family. She repeated that there just aren't good jobs available. "Right now we don't have any health insurance. Frank got sick a while back and we needed to get him some care right away, he needed antibiotics, and so we went to the emergency (room) at the hospital. Frank couldn't breathe. Now we have a bill we have to pay back monthly. ... We worry every day that something might happen." Scattered among us To real estate agents and homebuyers, the phrase "above the boulevard," is packed with meaning. Nice homes, good views, lofty prices. Everything that attracts the affluent to the city. But behind the curtain is another view of living that is not above much of anything. Often, it's below something, like a huge tree, or a bridge, or a campground sign. It's the place that many people call home when the bills overstep the means to pay them. Ashland Police Officer Bon Stewart knows these places like a real estate agent knows Granite Street. He patrols them frequently, reluctantly enforcing Ashland's ordinances that ban camping within the city limits. From sleeping bags in the bushes of Lithia Park to local rental houses with people coming and going, Stewart has seen it all. On a vacant piece of land in the railroad district, a small home is carved out of the thicket, underneath a large tree. Early in the spring, Stewart sees a local homeless man has set up shop, with blankets, beer cans and trash strewn among the opening. "We clear this out a couple of times a year," Stewart says. The railroad district is one neighborhood with a high percentage of people living at or below the poverty level. But it's also just another neighborhood in transition, where older homes are restored next to run down properties. Some are torn down to make way for new homes that will sell for about a half a million dollars. Even above the boulevard, pockets of poverty can be found. Within a short walk from the Plaza, houses that cost between $500,000 and a million dollars are bordered with a trailer park and low-income apartments. Tattered mailboxes line the doors of each dwelling. At the core of a lifestyle of poverty is the ongoing decision of where to call home. For families like Diane and Frank, it changes. Before they moved into their apartment, Diane and Frank camped at Jackson Hot Springs Campgrounds. They also lived in a motel awhile before securing their current apartment. At each stop, the family was comforted by the few support networks available to them. Their stay at Jackson Hot Springs Campgrounds helped them rebuild some stability. "They have this work trade program that if you camp there you can work for them. We did that for a pretty long time," she says. Local relief agenices, notably ICCA, provides a place where the simple pleasures of home await. "You can go and get a shower and a hot meal, coffee, donuts," Diane says. "We brought the baby and got some formula and stuff. It's sorta like a food bank. There's also a box of clothing that you can take stuff from." Their three-month stay at a hotel was paid for by Our Lady of the Mountain Church, Diane says. When asked about the future, Diane said that she hoped for a place with a yard. "I love yard work. And we keep looking for better jobs. We're hopeful, but it's hard." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams