A successful business couple and a highly trained surgeon felt stressed. Mortgage payments cost so much they couldn’t afford nutritious food. They couldn’t reach the places they needed to go to.
They were trying to balance a budget and make ends meet for a family living on or near poverty level. And they were frazzled after just 15 minutes of trying.
That intense poverty simulation engaged David and Sharon Bender and Melissa Perkal (pictured) along with 40 other people at the Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven on Wednesday night.
The United Way of Greater New Haven convened the exercise in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven as they launched their annual combined Neighbor-to-Neighbor fundraising campaign. That effort, begun in 2009 in the throes of the Great Recession, aims to get money to the front-line organizations — like food pantries and shelters — that help the increasing number of working families who continue to find themselves needing assistance.
“One of the challenges is that the Great Recession is over, but the need isn’t,” said United Way Vice President for Community Engagement Joshua Mamis.
The poverty simulation exercise’s aim was to make that ongoing need more palpable by taking participants through what it’s like — in the case of the Benders and Perkal — to step into the shoes of a fictional family trying to make ends meet.
Nola, Nancy, and Nolan —Perkal, and the Benders — struggle with the budget.
On Wednesday night, David Bender, who owns a successful plumbing-supply business, became 36-year-old Nolan. He works for 40 hours a week at $8.50 an hour. That translates into $1,241 after taxes.
His wife Nancy, played by Sharon, is unemployed. Their 15-year-old daughter Nola, played by Perkal, a surgeon in real life, goes to school. The last member of the household, father-in-law Ned, played by Andy Eder (who helped create the Neighbor-to-Neighbor initiative) receives 330 in disability payments. The family also receives $210 a month in food stamps.
The object of the exercise was to stay in character for the evening while taking those resources and finding a way to pay the monthly can’t‑miss bills: $630 in mortgage, taxes, and maintenance on the residence; $275 for utilities; $110 for food; $200 for an auto loan; $60 for clothing; and $170 for prescriptions and other miscellaneous.
Nolan, aka David Bender, ran the revenues versus the expenses on a piece of paper and absorbed the rules of the exercise: Each family got a limited number of transportation vouchers to get to the bank to turn disability checks or food stamps into money or milk. Nolan concluded it could be done, the ledger could be balanced — if no emergencies arose.
That was a huge “if,” Bender added.
Yet after further calculations (pictured) with his fictional father-in-law and daughter, he realized they were $40 short. They decided they’d have to pawn some of the household items, which came along with the situation. Should it be the stereo or jewelry? A stressful family “conversation” ensued. Who would go to the pawnshop? That would require a transportation voucher they did not have. The daughter could travel free as a school student, but that might make her miss school.
“It’s impossible,” Bender declared.
And so it went for the first dizzying 15 minutes, which was organized to represent the first week of the month. The evening consisted of four weeks, followed by dinner and discussion of what was experienced and learned.
The head of this year’s campaign, Mark Sklarz, said he was motivated to take on the job in part by his own experience participating in a similar poverty simulation last year, where the “perpetual, relentless pressure on a day to day basis” both to manage financial and social life was brought home for him.
Sklarz (left) with Jonathan Garfinkle at the fictional pawnshop, which turned him away, without explanation.
“I was a grandfather on disability,” Sklarz (pictured) recalled of his simulation. In his role-playing he went to a social service office to obtain a document or benefit for the grandkids. The wait was over two hours, with no good outcome.
As if that weren’t frustrating enough, “my [fictional] grandchildren were taken away” because when they came home from school, he was not there, and the authorities ruled him neglectful.
Sklarz said he hopes Wednesday’s simulation will bring home for people who don’t experience life this way, “the anxiety people feel who can’t provide shelter” and other basic needs for their loved ones.
With that as motivation, the simulation’s participants will become “captains” and raise money for the fund. At the height of the Great Recession, nearly $500,000 was raised. This year’s goal is approximately $300,000, Sklarz said.
A second simulation exercise is scheduled for Feb. 22 at Temple Mishkan Israel on Ridge Road in Hamden. Click here to sign up to participate.