Review of “Trapped in a Maze: How Social Control Institutions Drive Family Poverty and Inequality,” by Leslie Paik, 2021. Oakton: University of California Press. Paper, 128 pages.
The exhaustion of dealing with multiple individuals takes its toll.
In this new book, Professor Paik reports on the qualitative study she has done of 63 primarily poor minority families and their experiences navigating the various agencies, offices, and departments delivering assistance. Between 2011 and 2017—after the recession of 2018-plus and the ongoing fallout in those days—Paik spoke with many family members to get a good handle on how they approach getting the needed resources.
Professor Paik discovers a great deal of important information about the kinds of difficulties faced by poor families (any families) who are trying to make use of the famous safety net that some people have been quoted as saying is so helpful. There are school nurses, counselors who help find rent money for struggling families, therapists, and many other professionals and service employees from secretaries in agencies to drivers for persons who give rides to persons with disabilities.
The exhaustion of dealing with multiple individuals takes its toll. All entities have their processes and rules and regulations and traditions about showing up in person versus going online versus mailing in a form versus having somebody vouch for you versus filing to receive a referral or a permit or a card or a user ID.
All of the different rules, etc., must be absorbed and remembered by somebody in each family—or clan…
At least one member of the family has to be representative for that family—handling the storage of papers, the mailing of forms, the accessing of information and the “tracking-down” of resources of many different kinds.
The majority of the families must deal with more than one organization—food stamps and legal assistance may come from completely different agencies—and that includes healthcare clinics, doctors, advisors, insurance people, dentists, and after-school tutors.
Helpers on the street would do well to read this book making it so very clear how frustrating it can be for poor families to get their hands on everything they need. Understanding the hard work and the devotion of the family “expert” is important for the helper. Families in need, especially poor families, have to spend a huge amount of time and energy getting their resources.
Homeless families have the additional problems their lack of refrigerator, file cabinet, and bed provide. Without a refrigerator, there is no place to keep medications needing to be stored for use over time. Without a file cabinet it is hard to hold onto important papers—from the bank, the food pantry, the insurance company, the social security offices, unemployment counselors, and so forth. Without a bed, it is hard to convalesce after illnesses, after accidents, after traumatic experiences on the train, and after long days of walking and traveling around the city (or the county) to access food, medications, cash, and clothing.
As helpers in Edgewater, in Uptown, in Moscow, and in London, we counselors and educators and facilitators out on the street have our work cut out for us…
How do we help the most needy persons get their check? Their coat? Their sandwich? Their insurance coverage? Their food stamps? And a free lawyer?
It is through many hours of hard work—and many hours of communicating by word of mouth—that the lion’s share of help gets to poorer people out on the street.
I recommend this book because of the huge amount on information reported on here about the families struggling to get the needed resources. Helpers need to read this book to get a better handle on the myriad of work, of forms, of applications, of schedules, and of personalities that need to be dealt with to get poorer people what they need to survive.
Persons NOT familiar with the trials and struggles of poor families would do well to read this book, too. Informing persons not aware of these realities is an important part of what we should all be doing. We must tell everybody about the difficulties faced by poor persons.
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For further reading:
“Aporophobia: Why We Reject the Poor Instead of Helping Them,” by Adela Cortina, 2022. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Explains how people fear the poor and shun them, injure them, hate them, and often kill them. Looks at what may be driving that rejection of persons in need, with a focus on the homeless and others who need the most help. Provides an interesting profile of the typical person who harasses and rejects the poor.
“The Working Poor: Invisible in America,” by David Shipler, 2005. New York: Random House Reprints. The standard work showing how a huge number of Americans struggle against (mostly) unbeatable odds to survive and how they are trapped in low-paying jobs with high-ticket bills. Rent, utilities, food, and clothing are all expenses that the average US citizens facing very great challenges covering—even though they may be working full-time, long-term, and on a consistent basis.