Poverty Simulation

The poverty simulation was truly a wonderful experience and I was so happy that I participated in it. The stimulation started off with us getting a name tag and a family. I was a 19 year old single mother with a boyfriend who wasn't the father of my baby. I was struggling because I had to travel everywhere with my one year old baby because we were homeless. This wasted some of of my transportation passes. I had to cheat the system sometimes and not pay for ticket and I would hope no one would notice. My biggest concern was making sure that my boyfriend had enough transportation passes to get to work. Then we got kicked out of the homeless shelter so we moved into a multifamily home so the older children babysat my son, and we payed rent to them. It was so much easier to live in the multifamily home, but I wasn't exactly sure if it was legal. I was struggling to find time to buy food for my family and I almost forgot to apply for my benefits.

This entire experience left me shocked. It was nearly impossible to feed my family or make any kind of profit. The system is so screwed up that no one could get out poverty. There were families that resorted to crime, especially the kids. They felt like they needed to help their parents somehow and ended up committing crimes. It opened my eyes and I know now that I need to look into working with my students who are in poverty to show them how important school is for them. For some of them an education is all that will help them, and they're struggling.