I was on panel discussion on poverty a few weeks ago, when NY Times reporter Jason de Parle asked me, in what he said was a spirit of devil’s advocacy, why I slighted marriage as a solution to poverty. Actually, I’d barely begun to slight it—I’d just mentioned that it is the Bush administration’s favored anti-poverty strategy, when the audience, and especially the women in it, broke out into laughter.

De Parle was right to say that married couples do much better financially than single mothers, if only because the single moms lack a male breadwinner. But every time I think of marriage as an anti-poverty program, my mind flips back to a woman I met while researching Nickel and Dimed. She was a deeply religious African American woman, an evangelical Christian, and she broke into tears as she told me that her husband beat her when he got drunk, which was as often as he could find the time for it. (Just to confound any residual racial stereotypes you may have, the husband, whom I met, was white.)

She wanted to leave him, and had tried it once, but the hard fact was that she and the two children could not survive on her $10 an hour clerical job. He was no winner, but his $11 an hour contribution to the household made him, tragically, a keeper. The Bush administration would no doubt approve, because that’s our official policy: Stand by your man.

But why a man? Another thing that struck me in my Nickel and Dimed research was how often low-wage people teamed up in roommate situations, just to make rent. A single Florida waitress briefly shared a room with a male friend. Two young housecleaners in Maine, one the single mother of a toddler, rented an apartment together. These were not the most stable arrangements: The waitress moved out when her friend began to hit on her; the childless roommate in Maine got tired of the toddler. But while they lasted, these rent-sharing relationships helped pay the bills.

If the point is simply to increase the number of wage earners per rent bill, then marriage is hardly the only solution. There’s grandma, for example. According to the NY Times, one of the fastest growing types of households in American is the multigenerational household—grandparents, parents, and children. Grandma may have thought she was going to spend her golden years dancing in her living room to old Doors albums, but her kids and their kids need a place to stay, plus free babysitting thrown in. Even some of the more affluent are taking the multigen route, opting for houses with “bedroom suites” with private entrances – for the college grad child who has embarked on his or her life as a waitperson.

And let’s face it, what gives immigrant workers a leg up is their ability to tolerate residential crowding. Anyone who thinks that there are jobs that native-born people won’t put up with has probably never seen a native-born American sweat outside of a gym. We native-borns will do anything – clean houses, dig ditches, pluck poultry. We just hesitate to share a bedroom with three or four unrelated folks.

But I’ve met immigrant workers who lived six to a two-bedroom apartment, or who had nothing to go “home” to but a cot in a dorm. Maybe they’re a little less fussy about privacy; most likely, they fervently believe that their situation is temporary.

If the current gross mis-match between wages and rents continues, we’re going to something a little more robust than Bush’s “marriage promotion” policy. I have an idea, and it’s called a commune: Get together with some friends, divide the chores, make up some rules about noise and guests, and rent a place that none of you could afford on your own. My husband and I did it as young parents in the 70s, and, yes, there were occasional tensions, but we got space for our children and ended up with friendships that have lasted ever since.

Somehow, though, I don’t think the Bush administration will go for my plan.

Comments

[Diane Nilan]

Looking beyond the multigenerational arrangement, I'm finding that grandparents raising grandkids, sans parents, is the more frightening norm. Glad they're able to fill in for parents, because we've abolished orphanages and the image of urchins running around our streets would not play well, but think of what happens when granparents get old and infirm or, as we all must, die...

[Greg]

Maybe we native borns should be fighting for better jobs--not jobs to "clean houses, dig ditches, pluck poultry". Maybe the point should be to build affordable housing--not settling for communes.

Maybe it's the native borns and not George Bush.

[John]

Sadly the greater the divide between rich and poor the more the poor will have to innovate to survive. Arguably this will only end when the richer class realizes that their own income is not being maximized, at which point they will feel vulnerable. And only at this point will they begin to make concessions. Hmmm...beginning to sound like a labor struggle. Which is exactly what it is, but not with unions, with the populous at large.

[Tina]

As always, BE's writings are thought-provoking and stimulating, and it is so heartening to know that at least I am not alone in my concerns.

[Barbara E]

Greg-- I agree. Note: I said "IF the current gross mis-match between wages and rents continues..." Obviously, we have to do everything in our power to see that it doesn't.

[lc2]

I'm surprised to find myself disagreeing with Barbara on this one, but it's because more often than not, children are the ones who lose out when relationships dissolve. If there's a legal marriage (and I am proud to live in the one U.S. state that gives full legal recognition of gay marriage) the state at least has a fighting chance at collecting not only child support, but noncustodial contributions toward health insurance for dependent kids, in court, during divorce proceedings. When the whole process is streamlined, people don't end up losing jobs because of endless court dates while deadbeat parents are hauled into court to pay their fair share, and kids don't experience gaps in having their necessary expenses covered. If more people lived up to their responsibilities as parents instead of treating their kids as financial footballs in the event of a break-up, I'd agree that marriage is beside the point.

I'm not suggesting that marriage is the ultimate answer, but that the situation is complicated when kids enter the picture and that my loyalties are always first to those who cannot speak up for themselves.

[Rhea]

I agree with Barbara: "Why a man?" There are many more possible living arrangements than readily meet the eye. Co-housing, for example, is a movement that is taking off in the U.S. While it is not 'cheap', it usually costs less than other living spaces in the neighborhoods where cohousing is set up.
I believe a day will soon come when real estate/rent prices will be out of the reach of the average American. Call it whatever you'd like -- commune, co-housing, 'alternative' living arrangements. These will be the norm and not the exception in this country.

[Greg]

Barbara--shouldn't we be fighting for better jobs and affordable housing NOW and not already settling for living in communes regardless of "IF the current gross mis-match between wages and rents continues"?

I'm mean--why wait?

Should we WAIT until the average American's inability to afford a home "will be the norm and not the exception in this country"?

[LSLE]

When I got married earlier this year, I almost felt that I was betraying the group of struggling, single women w/ second-rate incomes and no health insurance. I now enjoy a two-income household (complete w/ health insurance--which I lacked for nearly two years), but I feel like I cheated. Really, marriage SHOULDN'T come w/ financial (and healthcare) benefits. It's simply just NOT fair to everyone else!

[Annamarie Deneen]

I like the commune idea. I too have done it in the '70s, to help pay the bills when I was raising my son.

BTW I just found the link to your blog on Tom Engelhardt's interview he did with you the other day, and I posted a part of it on my blog (verbena-19).

Tom sends me his Dispatches and Tomgrams, which I put in partially on my site, with links to his entire articles.

I found his interview with you highly interesting, compelling and thought-provoking. The same things are taking place in Canada.

I feel sorry for my grandchild. I don't know how she will fit into the workplace in 15 or so years. Unless she changes her mind, she wants to be a paleontologist. Her education will cost her parents a bundle, and I worry if she will be able to get work in that field. To save money for her education and cut costs, the other grandmother is looking after her when school is out. She lives just down the road. This has always been the arrangement, for I had lived out of the country and travelled extensively, so was not around to do this. However, it seems to work out well for them. The other grandmother gets a little extra money, yet it's not nearly what day-care would have cost.

I found it interesting that in your post you mentioned about the grandmothers helping raise their children's children, and multi-generational families. In Europe (where I originate) this is the 'norm' and has been ever since time immemorial. Grandparents often live together with their offspring and their families. This is also the case in most other parts of the world. It is only a relatively 'new phenomenon' in North America. How well we adjust to this arrangement here remains to be seen.

[Annamarie Deneen]

I forgot to mention in my previous comment that my son just got laid off from his position as director of business development, Canadian division, for a computer security company. The company folded. This is the third similar kind of company to fold that he had worked for in several years. He is educated and highly qualified in his field and was smart enough (prescient?) to make and keep excellent contacts. Still, my son is once again putting out his résumés, and he's ever more thankful for his mother-in-law (the 'other grandmother' in my previous comment) for her after-school help.

I cannot provide much help in this regard as I'm already the caregiver of my old uncle who suffered a stroke and now lives with me. This takes up much of my time.

I truly feel very bad and sorry for those people who do not have a strong family back-up bridge in situations such as these.

To those people in the U.S. who seem to think that we in Canada live in a huge 'socialist country' where most social service are free, let me disabuse you of this notion. The bureaucratic wheels move at such a snail's pace that the assistance needed to bridge the gap from one job loss to another employment takes too long to be of help. Childcare and elder-care are exorbitantly high here too. This is why an increasingly high number of families are losing their homes and moving in with relatives during difficult times. If they have no such relatives, they are out of luck. Emergency welfare assistance is available but it is far too scant to make ends meet. And with the aging and deteriorating health of the 'boomers', this situation will only worsen. I do not know what the answers are other than more needed programs by the governments such as affordable housing, in-home visiting nurses, elder-care/help programs, affordable childcare, etc. These issues are definitely not being addressed soon enough. Yet the middle class and the 'working poor' bear most of the burdens. For them there are few safety nets. I imagine in your country it is even more dire.

[trollumination]

Communes all sound nice, but the real problem is finding sane people to live with. If you happen to live with an alcoholic and two 'enabler's, like I was doing, you might find yourself out-of-pocket 5 months rent in the blink of an eye. That's a 2-month deposit written off, a new deposit to lay down, and a months rent should you be gone near the beginning of the month.

Bank account flattened. Would it be wrong to hope that the whole lot gets evicted themselves? Please nobody mention lawsuits, we're all far too poor to be sued. Except I had a little put away - now I don't.

The thing is that food clothing shelter are necessities of life, and when you have roommates, you're putting your life in their hands. Lesson learned the hard way.

So living with family doesn't seem so bad in comparison. At least you know their issues.

And this is why 'communes' will never work. One person can set themselves up as the difficult one and ,if enabled by other residents who fear the financial disaster of the whole thing falling apart, that person will be boss.

Roommates are bad because the worst person gets the most power.

And I'll say this - you find out real quick who your friends are when you're sleeping in your car.

[Christiane]

"If the current gross mis-match between wages and rents continues, we’re going to something a little more robust than Bush’s “marriage promotion” policy. I have an idea, and it’s called a commune: Get together with some friends, divide the chores, make up some rules about noise and guests, and rent a place that none of you could afford on your own."

Unfortunately, many cities are working hard to limit the definition of "Single Family Household" to exclude exactly these kinds of living situations. Take the case of Olivia Shelltrack, for example. Even though she "had a man" who was a permanent part of her life and the lives of their children, they were still kicked out of their suburban home because they weren't legally married. Marriage promotion goes beyond faux definitions of poverty relief and touches the heart of what we consider to be the American definition of "family."

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the family, married or unmarried, to find loopholes in discriminatory policy. It should be the policy of the government to protect every opportunity a family uses to support itself. Marriage promotion harms real families; it prioritizes economics over social/emotional needs and forces unhealthy living situations, it invalidates gay and extended family living situations, and it idealizes television stereotypes from 50 years ago.

"And let’s face it, what gives immigrant workers a leg up is their ability to tolerate residential crowding."

Unfortunately, immigrant workers may be willing to tolerate residential crowding, but the residents aren't willing to tolerate the immigrants.

Exclusionary policies like marriage promotion and SF zoning are exactly that: exclusionary. They intend to limit how and where certain people can live their lives. They promote a one-sided class-, race- and gender-limiting view of American culture.

It is time to re-examine equal rights protection, expand it to cover marriage discrimination, and broaden our cultural expectations regarding marriage and family policy.

[Greg]

I agree with Christiane. So much so that I'd like to marry her--ah! but I'm sure she must be taken.

I wonder if the same people who promote theology as a means to prosperity also see marriage the same way.

[Karen Stark]

While I like the idea of communal living, decent housing should be available to everyone. We shouldn't have to live with others just to survive.
Also, for the very poor on SSI, they run the risk of cuts in income and benefits such as food stamps, as HHS and SS look at the entire household's income. No one should not be penalized for living in a group situation.
I experienced that first hand, as my children and I lived with my parents for most of their lives because my ex was a deadbeat dad, and we just could not afford decent housing on my income alone. It was difficult for all of us, but I was able to send them to Catholic school with their grandparents' help, and they grew up in a nice middle-class neighborhood. However,I never heard a positive comment about my decision from my friends or my parents' friends. In fact, people were usually downright insulting. I tried to apply for some assistance, but the welfare workers bluntly told me I had nothing to complain about and that I would have to move out and quit my job to qualify for benefits. I had to swallow my pride on a regular basis. I hope that attitude is changing, but I don't think it is.
I am now a social worker and meet senior citizens everyday who live in squalor because they are too proud to let their children know how bad things are for them. And for the ones who have moved in with their families, they face losing some of their benefits.
Finally, the current and past administrations and Congress have been downright hostile towards the poor and they will continue because the poor have little voice or power (sometimes they are their own worst enemy, I'm surprised at how conservative many of them are).

[Karen Stark]

I would like to make a correction in my previous posting. I meant to say "no one should be penalized for living in a group situation."

[NancyKay]

How odd that I came across Tom's interview with you. I awoke at 2 this morning and was pondering my life. I'm 57, chronically ill and living with my cousin - and grateful for that. She and I are polar opposites but in five years have only had about four spats which were resolved by the slamming of doors, then apologizing to each other profusely. Yet I ask myself, what would I have done without Kathy taking me in??? And the answer?? "I have no idea!" She's a scientist, makes a decent salary and considers me an asset. Most of the expense of "me" is food and I don't eat a whole lot - but I can cook like a gourmet chef and keep the house moderately clean. We have decided that what we have is the perfect symbiotic relationship joined by being blood relatives - we could get really angry at each other, but at the end of the conflict, we'd still be cousins... I'm widowed, she's divorced. Cats upstairs and down. Hey! it works!! That polar-opposite thing flares once in a while, but we both are grateful for the company. Planning to add a veranda to the house so we can sit and throw nerf balls at the neighborhood hooligans when we are in our eighties!

[Laughing Historian]

"While I like the idea of communal living, decent housing should be available to everyone. We shouldn't have to live with others just to survive."

We shouldn't but my bet is that within a few decades most Americans will be living cheek-by-jowel with each other, like it or not.

Reason?
Oil among other things.

The detached single-family house will be remembered as an economic and demographic blip in American history, the ephemeral product of a unique and unreplicable set of historical circumstances.

Cheap oil, cheap land, cheap natural resources, and a growing middle class constitute a set of preconditions not likely to be repeated.

We're now in the Late Cretaceous period of the Suburban Era, symbolized appropriately by the SUV and by the outer suburban McMansion with the oversized foyer.

Americans a half-century from now probably won't be any worse off than they are now--they could even be a lot better off. But they will definitely be living in a different way.

Row houses and streecars?
I could think of a lot worse outcomes and besides both the houses and the stretcars will be a lot smarter than they were, say, in 1906.

[Jonathan Betz-Zall]

I'm glad to see the idea of communal living come up in this context; we've been using it for years as a facilitator for social change organizing. My spouse just wrote an article on this very topic, "I can do it because I live in Community", Communities Magazine, Summer 2006, p.46. Her opening line is about her housemate reading about the government spying on several activist groups in Seattle, then realizing that Rosy was affiliated with all but one of them! Rosy goes on to describe how she is able to maintain that activist lifestyle because of the financial and physical support of her housemates.
This model was proposed by Gandhi in India and realized by the Movement for a New Society in Philadelphia and elsewhere through the 1970s and 1980s. Although communal houses are indeed subject to the difficulties mentioned earlier, they can adopt self-protective measures that will mitigate them.

[Susan Keeping]

I cofounded a small non profit agency to help people living in poverty in 1991. Due to my own personal experience as a single mother living in poverty and coming from an abusive relationship I appretiate your work. I would like to start a dialogue with you about the work I am doing in BC Cananda. Also I would like to know if you ever come to BC to speak? Please look over our web site at www.newtonadvocacygroup.ca
one of our projects deal with homeless day labours.

[JP Merzetti]

Well, that insidious creeping moral conservatism that's slowly swallowing us alive - surely will come up with the answer that marriage is the answer to any single person's financial woes - no matter what state their singularity happens to reside in; but that solution rings rather hollow.

Some months back, when my college-age son remarked about the penchant of young women in his university to immediately leap to the fore on the marriage issue (this being the start-up conversation at house parties) I smirked that of course this was their biggest fantasy: the double income. (professionals preferred....)
Although I can't hardly blame them, really - in keeping with their horrifically narrow little upbringings.

Monster homes and McMansions may all be one day subdivided - as many of the older varieties were, back in the 1960's.

We have raised the bar in the past 3 decades, and I fear we can't keep it up - rising energy costs just one of the good reasons.

I've recently been browsing through a book called "Falling From Grace" (the author's name escapes me at the moment) - but it is a delighful companion reader to Bait and Switch...
Interesting - that it was published way back in 1988.
This book is indeed a harbinger of what has taken place since...massive white collar job loss.

What really jumped out at me was the fact that so many execs and mgmt. people - can't readjust within a society that just doesn't fathom a DOWNSIZED life.
Gigantism has become a kind of religion, I think.

Although I agree that it shouldn't take a job and a half, much less 3 jobs, or 5 jobs shared between two working adults to raise a family...(and I keep harping on this) I have severe doubts that there ever was enough to go around - to provide full decent employment in our economy - that would secure the kind of standard of living we enjoyed even as recently as the 1970's.

To put it bluntly - if Santa came early, and we suddenly woke tomorrow to discover we had a brand spanking new Tobin tax, corporate and capital gains taxes to beat the band (and no-one scampered off to find tax havens)...well, imagine Christmas in July, folks -
would this mean we could all merrily live forever after as we have been?
I doubt it.

Living wages, full employment, decent health benefits, housing, affordable education - these are all the things we want, and should demand. But how do we pay for them? ( I can hear the sabres rattling: "Dismantle the Military Industrial Complex")
Well, we're halfway there...we've managed to get rid of the lion's share of our industrial manufacturing base.

To belabor the point: Where is the wealth going to come from?

By the way - I've lived communally most of my adult life, although I don't now. It was entirely the result of economic conditions.
Sometimes I think we have created the most wasteful way imaginable to preserve the ideal - of the single nuclear family.

And finally (to add a bit of levity to this topic) recent discoveries in an exurban community north of my city....seems they've unearthed an astounding situation - the local schoolboard can't handle the enrolment numbers of students - demographic experts have discovered a weird baby boom of sorts - 5 or 6 kids per household, and not enough of a tax base to support educational placement for all the students.
The answer was simple enough. Immigrant families are doubling and tripling up in McMansions. These are all 10-12 room houses, and it's an easy thing to convert them into 8-bedroom dorms. Which is what they've done.
A wee bit of old-world domestic flavor!

[DrFood]

I think sharing a house is the way to go, and I disagree that it is doomed to failure. You do need to be careful, and you do need to know whether you are a "good judge of character" before you sign any leases. (If you are not a good judge of character, perhaps you have a friend whose opinion is sound?)

Anyway, I've shared a house four times, twice with five other people, once with two and once with three other people, all but one with both genders. (I recommend co-ed housing, btw.) It has saved me a lot of money and enabled me to enjoy much better living quarters than I would have otherwise.

Yes, there are stresses from sharing space with other people, but we are social animals, and the stresses of living alone are much harder on us.

[roxana]

I've checked out a lot of communes and they don't work so well either. We're going to have to fight over space under a bridge.

[Scott Wickham]

I NYC we used to have SRO single room occupancy hotels where people have low cost rest and privacy.

But off course liberal like you decided they were good enough so most of them were closed.

The housing problem is directly caused by government intervention in the free market system.

Anyway Barb, I think you are an upper middle class snob who's and idiot. But since many people agree with your silliness I will check you out and blog roll you.

BTW: You don't need George Bush to allow you to form a commune. Many people in US who wanted to have done it.

But what history shows is that the sooner or later they fall apart. Why don't you do some research on communues in the us. Or if that is to hard reseach what is happening to Kibutzs in Israel.

[Scavenger]

Not that I think this would go over well in America as a permanent "solution," but I had just finished reading this post when I surfed over to David Pogue's (of the NYT) blog and read THIS post: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=66

I'm sure that given the choice between getting hit on by one's roommate or living in one's car and living in one of these box-like rooms, most of the working poor would go for this.

Sorta reminds me of those overnight "capsule hotels" in Tokyo, as written about here: http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/lodging/capsulehotel/

Is this the future of the overworked and underpaid? Life lived as though a pod in the Matrix?