The hardships of unemployment and poverty in Rome
by Abby Ferguson
ROME, Ga. – With canned peaches, spinach and stewed tomatoes stacked on the shelves around her, Tiffaney Moore of Birmingham, Ala. took a break from heating up bread and rearranging hot trays at the Community Kitchen of Rome.
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Tiffaney Moore
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“I don’t have a penny in my pocket,” Moore said, with more cheerfulness than one might expect. “Everything I have has been given to me.”
Moore earned a degree from the University of Alabama Birmingham. She has opened three Outback Steakhouse restaurants in Birmingham and trained staff for each one. She types 95 words per minute and is well spoken.
Despite her resume, Moore, a felon, has been seeking work for more than a year.
“You have to apply online. I feel like if people could see you and actually meet you you’d have a better chance,” she said. “Anybody can look good or bad on paper, but, you know, you really need to meet somebody in person.”
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William S. Davies Homeless Shelter resident Billy Cronan says homelessness is “nothing he saw coming.”
Reporters: Chris Scott and Brittany Strickland
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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Background checks are also problematic, said Moore, who was released from the Women’s Probation Detention Center in Claxton, Ga. in early 2014.
“They all ask if you’re a felon, and I’m not going to lie,” she said. “I am a felon.”
Despite her many job applications, her only paid work since her release from prison was four days serving fried Oreos and funnel cakes at the Coosa Valley Fair in October. To pay her probation fees—$77 per month—she occasionally cleans houses. Without steady work, the future is uncertain.
Moore said she’s received 96 “thank you for your application” emails without a single job offer or even a callback. Despite this, her attitude remains upbeat.
“I want to work even if it’s for free,” she said. “I don’t get paid [by the Community Kitchen], but I get paid in other ways. It’s just a blessing.”
| INTERACTIVE MAP OF EMPLOYMENT RESOURCES IN ROME |
The many looking for work
Although the details of her circumstances may be unique, Moore’s struggle to find employment is not. In February of this year, Rome registered an unemployment rate of 6.9%, a level consistent with trends from the previous six months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although Rome’s unemployment rate is historically higher than Georgia’s, it has dropped significantly from the 11% annual average in 2010.
The poorest neighborhoods of Rome, with a median annual household income of less than $12,000 and nearly 1,400 residents as of 2011, are situated just a street or two off the downtown corridor. Maple Street marks the edge of this area, where residents are 60% black, according to City-Data.com. The second poorest section borders Cartersville Highway, just a few blocks beyond Maple Street. With approximately 500 residents, this area of Rome is 50% black and has a median annual household income of less than $13,000.
These numbers, however, can’t tell the whole story. Many Romans, it seems, are falling through the cracks.
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Ernest Newton went from a jail cell to the streets. With nowhere and no one to turn to, he found himself without a home.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Brittany Strickland
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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Are the helpers actually helping?
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Elaine Armstrong, director of
public relations, Goodwill of
North Georgia
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While the Community Kitchen serves hot meals five days a week to a packed house, there seems to be a communication breakdown between the impoverished and those who might offer help. At a recent job fair at Goodwill of Rome, employers like Lowes, Bojangles’ and the Department of Housing and Urban Development recruited, but few of Rome’s unemployed attended.
Goodwill of Rome’s Career Center is open to any and all looking for employment, providing resume critiques and aids, tips on professionalism, a computer lab and weekly workshops.
“Our mission is to put people to work, and we really don’t turn people away,” said Elaine Armstrong, director of public relations for Goodwill of North Georgia.
The lack of demographic data or statistics on efficacy from leading nonprofits like Goodwill and United Way of Rome and Floyd County prevents an exploration of how closely race is correlated with joblessness and poverty.
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Being homeless is easy, says Ernest Newton.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Brittany Strickland
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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The Race Issue
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Richard Lampkin, executive director,
United Way of Rome and Floyd County
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“I don’t see a difficulty,” said Richard Lampkin, executive director of United Way of Rome and Floyd County. “The Boys and Girls Club takes every child that walks in the door. They don’t care if they’re green. Are there more African-American have-nots in this community? There might be. There are a lot of have-nots in the white community also.”
If Lampkin is right, that there is no “difficulty,” why do resumes with black-sounding names elicit 50% fewer calls than those with white-sounding names?
There may be a lot of white “have-nots,” but it’s difficult to ignore the economic disparities that divide along racial lines. In 2009, the median household income for blacks in Rome was $19,242, well shy of the $44,502 median for white households, according to City-Data.com. Inside the city limits, the wealthiest community of white households averaged $133,000 annual income, while the wealthiest black households averaged $77,000.
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Ernest Newton’s future is uncertain, but age and homelessness conspire against him.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Brittany Strickland
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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To Lampkin, gaps in wealth and income have more to do with education than race.
“In both situations, [white and black communities], it’s a question of education.”
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Heather Lathbury Seckman, director of
economic development, Greater Rome
Chamber of Commerce
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The Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce is taking steps to address the obvious need for education among the under-resourced, said Heather Lathbury Seckman, director of economic development at the Chamber. The Floyd County Schools College and Career Academy, a collaborative effort among the Chamber and Floyd county schools, is a program for high school juniors and seniors that provides three to four hours a day of skills and technical training, along with an internship.
Seckman said the Chamber prioritizes preparing the generation still in school for academic and career success rather than directly addressing the needs of the unemployed and impoverished.
“We are indirectly helping [the under-resourced] by helping the current group stay in school,” she said. “We don’t believe in reinventing the wheel; [helping the poor] is what United Way does. We are more proactive. We do not work directly with impoverished people or people who are out of work or in poverty.”
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Tiffaney Moore’s route to Rome proved circuitous.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Abbey Ferguson
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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The Chamber’s central role in economic development is working with area businesses and recruiting new industries to Rome to expand, develop and sustain employment opportunities. By encouraging new industries to establish themselves in Rome, the Chamber hopes to increase revenue for local businesses with the added traffic and development brought by increased industry.
“[We are] growing the pie,” Seckman said. “Instead of dollars going from one side of Broad Street to the other, [we are] bringing new dollars to the community.”
New dollars yes, but not always new opportunities. A lot of the new money and new jobs—around 75%, according to Lampkin—have come to the area in the form of robotics and technology manufacturing. This kind of manufacturing often requires only a relatively small number of skilled workers to operate, providing no opportunity for the untrained or uneducated.
“The horizon is not good [for many of the unemployed], especially if they have children,” Lampkin said. “If [an applicant] has not held a job for a number of years, you’re taking a risk as an employer.”
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A criminal record complicates the already difficult task of finding work.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Abbey Ferguson
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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Moore is pressing on
After reviewing all 96 of her dead-end job applications, Moore has taken the last few weeks off from the job hunt. She has visited the Goodwill Career Center only once instead of her average two or three weekly visits.
“You know walking into the Career Center three times a week and you get so discouraged,” she said. “So yeah, I took two weeks off. But you know, I still do stuff. It’s not like I’m [giving up].”
To fill the hours away from a computer, Moore has started volunteering at Third Street Ministries, sorting and distributing donated clothing to others in need. She said she has a hard time imagining where she could be in five years, or even where she wants to go.
“It’s been so hard to even just get a job that I really don’t know,” she said.
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With a steady job proving elusive, Moore volunteers her time serving Rome’s less fortunate.
Reporters: Chris Scott and Abbey Ferguson
Producers: Chris Scott and Kelsey Merriam
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