BEING POOR IN THE U$A

Photo at left is a New Orleans resident who had no car in which to escape rising floodwaters in the lower 9th Ward immediately after Katrina.
I have recently given a lot of bolder thought (as opposed to some infrequent very uncomfortable thought) to what it means to be anything but rich in this country.
Events of late have caused me to think more about money and the lack of it and how that relates to just about everything else.

Starting with the empty apartments upstairs from me in what used to be a old "hippie" beach town, here in Marin County, Northern California, bedroom community of both San Francisco and San Quentin Prison, the only Death Row in the state of Claifornia.
The house I live in was built in 1905, without a foundation, probably part of housing temporarily thrown up for Merchant Marines working at the Port of San Francisco.
Most of the houses on this one street are this old, though the condos across the street were built in the last 10 years.
Most people here in this little town (one street, no mail delivery) own these homes. though a few houses are rented, such as my own.
This was not always the case. When I first moved toMarin County, it was full of artists, hippie type people, "counterculturals", some of whom lived on houseboats in Sauasalito but did not pay anchoring fees for their berths.
They are now called "anchor outs" and a pitched battle has been waged in times past to get them to join the mainstream, register their junky looking vessels and pay the municipalties for the right to occupy the waters in the SF Bay, now wholly privatised.
Now, Marin County has become a place more and more bifurcated by the haves and the have nots.
Monster homes-ubiquitous SUV's, a sense of entitlement heretofore unseen in this, the No. Ca bastion of liberalism, second only to SF.
Now, the apartments upstairs have gone unrented because landlords go by one's credit report to decide whether someone is worthy of renting to; using the report to gauge whether the rent will be paid on time, whereas before it was a handshake and a feel of the "vibe" of the person.
Most people will pay rent before they pay anything else, hence the credit cards go unpaid for a month or 2. Most landlords used to understand this.
Now, however, I am being SUED (yes, SUED) for being 3 months behind in a credit card payment to a company that never even conatacted me about being late. My rent is paid, but my credit report will now reflect a lawsuit for non payment of a debt.
A debt I am making arrangements to deal with with a debt consolidation company, subcontracted by my credit union.
A debt already paid on a monthly basis by another credit consolidation outfit for the last few years, though because it was not paid off entirely, it is now subject to laws pertaining to the rights of companies (considered "persons" in their own right, as seen by the movie "The Corporation") to whom one undisputably owes money.
Being sued by a corporation for the non payment of debt costs money; Filing fees and the necessary consulting of an atty, because the response to a lawsuit is confusing, and one must know which form to file where, in response. If you don't respond properly, you lose in court.
I had to buttonhole an old family friend, sister of my godmother, Maragaret McCombs, who is a bankruptcy atty who fortunately for me now lives in SF, Stephanie Morris.
The humilaition of being sued for the collection of a debt had to be subsumed into my actions to respond to the lawsuit. I cannot afford to let it go unresponded to, so I had to swallow my pride and ask her help.
The 2 upstairs apartments have now been rented to what my landlord calls "Nordstrom" types: a single woman in her twenties with a poodle who yaps all the time though this gal seems not to hear it. She's a writer for a TV show. Has a huge SUV, suitable for going through the rainforests of Nicaragua; not at all for the tiny space allotted her unit here.
A young couple who have both a huge SUV and another large car of domestic make. Oh yes and a rambunctious puppy that scampers and barks above my head.
Both have tons of "stuff" they can't fit into an old place like this so the stuff is abandoned near the trash cans, too large to fit in them, that get blown all over the road and yard when a high wind comes up.
The woman who lived upstairs before them had a job selling washing machines at an upscale kitchen remodelling place and had so much stuff she never used that when the time came to move she was in tears trying to figure out what to do with it all, remembering that I am a "freecycle" fanatic and foisted some of the stuff off on me.
She said she was "too poor" to pay to have it shipped and desperately wanted her deposit back.
Being poor in the true sense actually COSTS one money; Bank charges when a check bounces, both from your bank and the person to whom you wrote it.
Late fees for parking or traffic tickets you can't afford to pay and since municipalities have had to cut their budgets, there is no longer a traffic court to either protest them or do community service to pay them off. One choice only: pay them.
Late fees for credit card payments, rent.
Some say you shouldn't have debts you can''t pay but there is a whole industry of predatory lending to people who have bad credit, who prey on the poor in mortgage lending etc.
Go to http://www.responsiblelending.org/
People in this country are more and more using credit cards to pay for the daily needs of life; cards they never applied for, cards there was a time they would never have been issued. Predatory lending is a recent phenomena, since the 90's.
I lived on credit cards when I was on disability and figured I would pay them off once I went back to work. The over limit and late fees grew and grew until it was out of control.
You can sit in your house and do nothing at all and your rent can go up in a place like Marin County where there are no tenant protections.
During the Dotcom boom, people with tons of cash lined up for blocks to either buy or rent places, driving up housing costs everywhere. Now that the boom went bust, housing costs have remained the same.
Fuel costs drive up the price you pay to take the bus if you don't have a car.
Criminal Justice? Death Row is populated with people, usually non white, who could not pay for a decent lawyer to fight for them. Not many Johnny Cochrans out there getting aquittals for the guilty who can afford to pay them
WalMart who pays their employees so little they must use MediCaid to pay their health care costs .
Organic food costs a fortune. if you were poor with no health insurance you would have to pay a fortune if you believed eating better would keep the doctor away.
Poor and Black? You're Fucked