Poverty Gets Real

We asked Missouri PSC Commissioner Maida Coleman about the poverty simulation at this year’s NARUC Summer Policy Summit. Excerpted from the article “Chairing NARUC's Committee on Consumers and the Public Interest,” here’s what Commissioner Coleman said:

“I was born and raised in a small town in Southern Missouri. We lived in a four-room house with an outhouse until I was sixteen. I became an adult, got married, got divorced, lived in public housing, and was on food stamps.

At the time it was called Aid to Families with Dependent Children, AFDC. Now we called it TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. When my kids were little, I qualified for WIC and met the standards for them to participate in the free lunch program at school.

I know I’ve been looked down on and was embarrassed when using food stamps, but I’ve been fortunate to bounce back from what some would consider unfortunate circumstances. There’s a disconnect between the decision makers and what goes on in the real world of people in poverty, including the opinion that they’re all lazy.

My goal was to come up with something that helps participants understand what it’s like to live in a typical low-income family. The objective was to sensitize participants to the realities faced by low-income people and to identify ways that regulators and stakeholders can collaborate to address these challenges.

In the simulation, the participants assume the roles of different family members facing poverty. Family members under the age of three are usually represented by dolls but we had so many conferees want to participate that we had people take on these non-active roles as well. I’m proud that we had so many interested in participating.

We had eighty-eight participants taking on the roles of families and we had twenty-seven volunteers managing the community resources, which included a bank, supercenter, community action agency, employers, utility companies, a pawnbroker, and social service agency among others.

The simulation helped people understand what it’s like for senior citizens on disability or retirement, grandparents raising their grandchildren, or people with a criminal record who can’t get a job.

We had a cross section of people participate. Public Service Commission Staff participated. We had utility and energy staff and leadership, Consumer Advocates. All NARUC attendees were welcome.

What I want folks most to take away from that stimulation, is that poverty affects every aspect of a person’s life. It affects the children in how they behave at school, how their lives turn out, and how they interact with others. If they have no food, it affects their health.

Folks need electricity, heat, and water. If we, as regulators, can work with these utilities to come up with programs to assist low-income people, that will help in a variety of ways. We not only will meet the basic needs of the customer but will help society as a whole.”