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Official: Politics obstruct poverty aid

People of different income levels think differently, JCEO head says

SARANAC LAKE — Fifty-five minutes into his PowerPoint presentation, Bruce Garcia singled out this country’s partisan divide as the primary problem in understanding poverty today.

“In this country, the debate over poverty isn’t about poverty,” said Garcia, the CEO of the Joint Council on Economic Opportunity for nearly a decade. “It isn’t actually about income levels. It’s more about philosophy. It’s more about if you’re a conservative or a liberal. It’s more about if you are a Republican or a Democrat.

“We need to get away from all of that,” he added. “We need to understand that people are people. We need to be realistic about who they are, and we need to understand that having attitudes against people simply because they don’t have the same amount of money as us doesn’t make sense, at all.”

Garcia monitors JCEO programs such as Head Start, the Child and Adult Food Care Program, Weatherization, Home Energy Assistance Program, Emergency Housing services, and Community and Senior Outreach. More than 50 people packed the Cantwell Room at the Saranac Lake Free Library Thursday to listen to his breakdown on poverty here in the North Country, part of the free Library Lunch series. He spoke for an hour, centering his address on the notion that poverty here “isn’t what you think it is.”

His key points included the following:

¯ how long-held beliefs about household budgets are no longer useful, considering the modern cost for food and shelter

¯ how many people in the North Country regularly fluctuate between abject and relative poverty

¯ how people are different within what he called “the American class system.”

“Here’s the thing that most people don’t recognize, is the fact that within that class system, people think differently,” Garcia said. “Do not think for one minute that low-income people think the same way as middle-income people, because they don’t. And middle-income people don’t think the same as upper-income people.”

Garcia illustrated his point by bringing up how members of each of the three classes solve the problem of having a flat tire.

“You don’t have the money, so what do you do?” he said. “Low-income people know people. They call people. They’ll know somebody who knows somebody where they can get a used tire. And they’ll call some buddy of theirs who’s got the equipment to come and fix the tire.

“They don’t call up Goodyear.”

Analyzing Clinton and Franklin counties further, Garcia brought up the United Way’s “ALICE” Project, which stands for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.” It’s a report that claims to help those in relative poverty who “are one small emergency away from living in financial crisis.” Garcia said 44 percent of New Yorkers are “ALICE,” or live below the federal poverty level.

For Clinton and Franklin counties, Garcia outlined a monthly household survival budget. For a single adult in Clinton County, it included, among other costs, $567 for housing, $200 for food and $300 for transportation.

In total, Garcia said the minimum income for a single adult to “get by” in Clinton and Franklin counties was just above $20,000. For a family of four in Clinton and Franklin counties with two adults, an infant and a preschooler, that number jumped to slightly more than $30,000.

Garcia also added that he was struck with how different financial situations are for people living in different places within the county.

“It’s really interesting to see that some towns, you look at the number of people living in poverty in that town, really very low,” he said. “And then in other towns, it’s really high. And when you start to try to figure out the factors that create that kind of circumstance, most of the time you can figure out pretty easily.”

At the end of his presentation, Garcia was asked why he believes military veterans today are facing more economic strife than in past generations. He replied that he disagrees with that notion, saying it’s existed going back all the way to veterans from World War I and only become more well known recently thanks to increased data collection.

“To be honest with you, when I look at a lot of numbers, it has been a persistent problem,” he said. “It’s a huge issue among veterans, but it’s not a new issue.”

He was also asked about President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget, which includes cutting aid programs such as HEAP. Garcia dubbed it “dead on arrival,” though he said he thinks Trump’s proposals should still be disconcerting for those in poverty.

“There is no way Congress can pass that and get re-elected next year,” he said. “Just not going to happen. But I don’t have any idea at this point where it’s going to end up. … If that’s what his current status is and that’s what he is going to be projecting out from here on in, it’s clearly going to get worse, and it’s not positive for anybody.

“Clearly anything to do with food or heating are big issues for people in the North Country,” Garcia added. “When you look at housing programs, I mean, you look at basically what a person needs. They need shelter, they need food, and they need heat, and anything that’s going to negatively impact those three areas for low-income people (is) going to have traumatic impact upon them.”

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