A lot of people have told me that problems in America should be solved before we concentrate our efforts anywhere else. To some extent I agreed, but I also believed that I couldn't really accomplish anything, that the issues here were systematic. I still believe that they are. But recently I became, in real life, the adventurous person I always imagined myself to be. I packed up everything (everything) and moved a thousand miles from home. Well, that place isn't home anymore. Home has a different definition for people who don't value permanent addresses. It hasn't been home for a long while, maybe most of my life. Anyways.
I moved out here, to Denver Colorado. And I've discovered something. The problems are systematic, and as I move into the adult stage of my life, I'm beginning to be affected by them. I happen to be very lucky that I can still rely heavily on parental support, and I have cash reserves of my own, but let's put just this one dichotomy into perspective.
Working a full time job with biweekly pay intervals (standard), you will not be paid until you've already been working for three weeks. For those three weeks, you are floating on savings.
Rent plus security is due before you move in. Anywhere.
Basically, anyone starting at zero, absolute zero, will have to maintain themselves for three full weeks before getting the cash flow to start supporting themselves. But in many ways, employment is dependent upon having those trappings of financial security; a daily shower alone requires access to very expensive resources, basically a house, apartment or hotel, and is arguably the most indispensable resources for maintaining employment.
I'll be forthright here. I paid out $250 in rent for a room in someone else's apartment for the two weeks that I was working but hadn't received a paycheck. Getting my own place cost me $500 security plus $400 for half a month's rent on the day I signed, again before I had gotten a paycheck. My first paycheck was not as much as this combined amount; we haven't even gotten to food, transportation or business-ready wardrobe yet. So basically, if I had taken out a payday loan, I would still be in the hole.
Feel free to argue that a 22 year old has no "right" to their own place, that I could have found an even cheaper place to live (which is almost true, by a margin of 20%) and avoided a security deposit. Which is true. But there are some problems with this. First, the availability of such arrangements is incredibly scarce; not everyone who could benefit from such an arrangement will have access to them. Supply outweighs demand manifold. Second, I think you're an asshole if that's the world you want to live in, where working people should not have a place to call their own with privacy and a lock on the door by the time they hit their mid-twenties. There are two faulty assumptions that go into that, and you probably come from a place of deeply ingrained privilege, like I did, if you are making them. The first assumption is that all people up to the age of 28 are functionally single and financially in the black. They don't need much space. They don't need a car or air conditioning or heat. They have nothing valuable that needs to be secured. They've saved by working while living with their parents for a while. Fitting into somebody's spare bedroom or splitting rent with trustworthy roommates is just part of the progression process. The second assumption is that all people up to the age of 28 do not have children. Working in a high school, I have found out first hand just how often this isn't true. More appalling is the number of young ladies (it is usually ladies) supporting a child, or two, all by themselves, while working and finishing high school. Parental support is a coin toss; maybe it's there, maybe it isn't, but either way they have to cope.
So being a few years older than them, making (I have to assume) at least double what they make, and only supporting myself, with help, I cannot begin to imagine how they begin to make ends meet. Quite a few can't seem to do algebra to save their lives but their math skills must be damn impressive when they get home and they have to make rent and feed their kids after taxes have garnished a minimum wage. That alone has earned my respect a few of my students.
So I've gone on an adventure. In the process, I have discovered that surviving in the United States in this day and age is a numbers game. The tables can be turned by just a few dollars. There is no "fudging it" in our calculated age. If you're lucky, maybe a sweet face and a handshake will get you some leeway with your landlord or the bus driver. But at the grocery store, on your utility bills, the numbers are set. If you're short, you're short, and something you needed is going back on the shelf. And if that sweet face didn't work, you might be out on the street very quickly. How do you keep your job when you're living out of the back of your car, or worse on a park bench?
A numbers game is a bad way to run a country, in my opinion, but it does leave the opportunity for relatively simple, if short-term, solutions. Change the numbers. People of privilege like me, and my wonderful boyfriend, can change the numbers for people. It does eventually come down to picking the right people. Small numbers will probably only make small patches in the dams that are poor people's lives, constantly springing new leaks under the stress of the business of living, but my $20 can be the difference between doing laundry this weekend and not, between a duct-tape solution or a new one of whatever they need. It could mean getting that thing they wanted that much sooner. Simply put, changing the numbers for the right people strengthens them, and in turn strengthens the community. A cascade effect of security and confidence.
The system still needs to change. But in the meantime, I can work with the system to make a difference. And in certain places, for certain people, a trivial amount is not trivial at all. The next year of their lives may be better because I tipped the balance today. I want to say that it's a powerful feeling but that power is channeling the love of God into the people around me.
Especially this guy serving me coffee. Two jobs to support two kids, all by himself. $20 could be a new pair of jeans for his growing son, a new backpack, new headphones so he fits in with the other kids. I hate to offend, because I think this guy is actually keeping things together all by himself. But at the same time, he needs a break. I guess equating horrible hours with financial crisis is a bad assumption to make; I can't assume. I can give that kind of help to a woman, I think, but to a grown man, somehow the rules are different.
One thing that I haven't learned from going on this adventure; the rules. It should be easy, considering I'm still in America, still playing by the same rules that I've been living under my entire life. But I occupy a new space and I'm not navigating it as gracefully as I would like. I am trying. Points for effort.
The biggest value I've gained from moving, is learning to be a member of the community that I'm in. It took me until my last year of living in Los Angeles to finally be a contributor there, to do good works in my own back yard. I should have been doing that all along but some lessons are slow to learn. Now that I'm here, it seems so much more important to be a positive force, to put a few key people into a better position so that they can be pillars of their communities. You don't have to be a minister or speech giver. You just have to be a responsible adult, set a good example, be reliable and honest and decent, to be a pillar that holds up the moral canvas of a neighborhood.
I can be a good man. Even in a dirty orange hoody, I can project power and warmth and presence and respect. I can be a man that people look up to and they don't even know why. They'll wish that there were more people like me.
