Imagine hearing the alarm go off at 6:30 a.m., listening to the birds chirping outside the window as you slowly gain a state of consciousness, leaving your dream state behind. You think of getting the coffee ready, then waking up the kids to get them ready for school. You hear your spouse in the shower in the distance, and then you remember he recently became unemployed. You have bills to pay, and his unemployment benefits barely cover anything. Plus, they will soon run out.

You wake up to your reality…

Thousands of families in Central Texas wake up to this reality day after day. While we may think these families can receive help from hundreds of services, including government assistance, the reality is that to receive government assistance in the United States, families must qualify as “officially” poor. But there is a big difference between being “officially” poor and actually poor.

The federal measures of poverty are outdated and have very little basis in what it truly takes to live with met basic needs. The Federal Poverty Income Level (FPIL), the level at which an individual qualifies to receive government assistance, is based on three times the cost of food for each family size. This measurement assumes that one third of an American family’s most basic budget is spent on groceries.

The FPIL fails to account for the true cost of living.

Consider the elements needed in a given day just to survive: a roof over your head, food on the table, electricity, transportation, and reliable child care for a young child. This does not include health care or even a phone.

When we consider all those factors, the income needed is significantly higher than the threshold for securing federal assistance. The Center for Public Policy Priorities has developed an interactive tool that allows anyone to see just how much is actually needed for a family, based on their region, to meet their daily requirements:

The FPIL in Central Texas is $17,170 per year for a family of four.  Another way to look at that is a family of four earning $18,000 or even $24,000 per year is not “poor.” If we use that figure, 13 percent of Central Texas families—a bit above one in ten—are living at or below the federal poverty level. That number may seem manageable through government support and charitable activities. But when we use the basic needs calculator, a family of four needs $42,400 to keep a roof over their heads and the lights on, place healthy food on the table, secure childcare to maintain employment, and keep healthy.   According to the U.S. Census, 40 percent of Central Texas families—or four in 10—fall below the income figure needed to secure their basic needs. 

Now, your spouse just lost his job, you have two school-age kids to feed, clothe, and provide health care for, and your spouse’s temporary employment salary amounts to $20,000 a year. That means you and your spouse don’t qualify for government assistance and need to come up with slightly more than $460 a week on your own just to cover your basic weekly needs. That is a lot of money to come up with if you’re lacking the job and language skills needed to compete for jobs. And adding to this stress is the fact that you and your children may be sick and hungry.

It is this gap—the gap between the official poverty line that qualifies a family to receive federal benefits and the actual income needed to meet basic needs—that demands our attention as a community and draws the central focus of El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission.

Mapping the Gap

When we consider that four in ten Central Texans cannot meet their daily needs, we see that poverty is dispersed throughout our community. It is not limited to one or two zip codes, but something that people in practically every zip code are facing and affected by.

The map below shows the geographic distribution of poverty and need for services in Austin and its surrounding areas.

Zip codes of families who received services from El Buen Samaritano, January 1, 2010 to date 

Teetering on the Edge

For a family or individual who just earns the minimum wage—or less—each day is a struggle simply to survive. As illustrated in El Buen’s service area map, families throughout Austin are teetering on a sharp edge between self-sufficiency and reliance on social services.

Many of our clients are families who must choose between food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. They are families whose children drop out of school to get a job to support their family, or for whom one catastrophe, turn of bad luck, economic bad news, or a poor decision sends them quickly into a spiral of need and incapacity.

For those living on the edge, the consequences of bad luck or bad choices have significantly greater consequences than for those who may have a safety cushion. At some point, most of us make a bad choice or fall on bad luck. Yet some who live above the basic needs line can turn to good credit, savings, or flexibility with a job. But for some, there is simply no margin.

Every spending choice for a family struggling to make ends meet has a direct consequence. When children drop out of school to help their families in the short term, they have undercut their future earnings. When a mom buys low-cost food in order to cover the rent, her children cannot concentrate in school and are more likely to have poor health. When a dad celebrates with his buddies after a long work week, there may not be much left over to pay the electricity bill.

A Hand Up: The Bridge Over the Gap

El Buen Samaritano is dedicated to helping families not only meet their daily needs, but climb above that fine edge while focusing on their health and educational attainment. Our services help families create a cushion of sustainability so that a bad turn or bad luck does not send them teetering over the edge:

• Health and Human Services
  Underlying issues of poverty include hunger, high levels of stress, unattended or neglected health issues, and unhealthy behaviors. El Buen Samaritano’s Health and Human Services ensure that families have access to the resources they need to maintain their emotional and physical well-being. Additionally, aware of increasing health care costs, El Buen Samaritano offers health services to families in need, specifically to individuals who are uninsured—Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured in the United States—at a greatly reduced rate.
• Education and Healthy Living
  Following its principle to provide a family approach to education, which can in many cases break the cycle of low literacy, poverty, and depression, the organization’s education programs are designed so that all members of the family are learning at El Buen Samaritano at the same time. While adults take classes such as Adult Basic Education, English as a Second Language, Computer Skills, GED preparation, Citizenship Preparation or life-skills workshops, their children are involved in our  Child Learning Center, Reading Buddies, Summer Camp, Outdoor Kids, and the Youth Tutoring program.

Aside from health services, case management and community referrals, El Buen Samaritano’s Health and Human Services houses a food pantry. In 2010, clients made 6,110 visits to the food pantry, receiving almost 187,000 pounds of nutritious food.

We look at families as a whole and offer them a hand up through a supportive net of services that can help them get back on their feet despite hardships. We create sustainable transformation by building on family strengths so families can climb above the basic necessities line and thrive while engaging effectively in our community.