Daily Herald
September 9, 2010
Nearly half of the region’s poor live in the suburbs,
From Daily Herald:
Elmhurst College is nestled in Illinois’ wealthiest county – 19 DuPage County communities have household incomes averaging over $100,000 – yet one of the first lessons new students are taught is the plight of the area’s poor.
More than 500 Elmhurst students recently took part in a unique freshman orientation where they’re introduced to the college’s Poverty Project, a mission the church-based, liberal arts school undertook last year to raise awareness about poverty – both locally and around the globe.
The students spent five days pondering questions like “What will you stand for?” “Who are your heroes in social justice?” and packed more than 119,000 meals for Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit group with locations in Schaumburg and Aurora.
College officials say they’re not trying to be a social service organization, but rather, to instill good ethical values and educate students about what’s going on around them.
Elmhurst College President S. Alan Ray said engaging the students with the real world enhances their formal education.
“One male nursing student said he thought when people lived in poverty, it was their own fault. They weren’t working hard or trying to get out of their situation,” Ray said. “When he went out and met people, he changed his mind about that. He now knows that sometimes people get trapped in it.”
Even, increasingly, in the suburbs.
The state recently announced a record 1.6 million people are on food stamps. Unemployment in Illinois remains at about 10 percent, and 14.4 percent of the population in suburban Cook and Kane counties – literally tens of thousands of people – are now classified as low income.
In order to survive, a family of three in Lake County must earn $58,000 a year, according to the Heartland Alliance’s 2010 Report on Illinois Poverty. One out of every 10 Lake County families doesn’t earn that much. And that’s not even the most expensive suburban county to live in.
“These aren’t your parents’ suburbs,” Professor Robert Gleeson, from Northern Illinois University’s Center for Governmental Studies, told an audience during one of the Poverty Project panel discussions.
While the recession contributes to the problem, there’s a bigger, more long-term reason why more suburban residents are financially struggling, says Amy Terpstra, the associate director of Heartland Alliance’s Social IMPACT Research Center.
Terpstra says the suburbs have seen an increase in low-paying service jobs and a decrease in good-paying, family-supporting jobs.
While the percentage of poor people in the city of Chicago has held relatively steady since 1980, the poor population in the suburbs has tripled in some areas.
“Forty-four percent of the region’s poor live in the suburbs,” Terpstra said. “And there are really unique challenges with being poor in the suburbs. Transportation and services are more challenging to find.”
While some people might assume the majority of the poor are immigrants, Terpstra noted that the immigrant poverty rate is only sixth-tenths of a percentage point higher than nonimmigrants – 12.7 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively.