 and welcome to World of Books, a talk show on good books that we think you should read. I'm your host, Mihaila Stoops, and today's topic is poverty, and what can we do about it? Words, natural disasters, a worldwide pandemic have not only exposed poverty, but have also pushed more people into poverty. Today's book is co-authored by Ruby Payne, Phillip DeVall, Terry Drosie-Smith, and Eugene Krebs, and it is called Bridges Out of Poverty. It is at its fifth edition, and it even has an update regarding COVID on its effects on poverty. My guest today is my good friend, Jeanie Frank. Jeanie and I met through the Maui Prep Book Club, and we've read many books, many good books, and we've had some wonderful conversations over time. Jeanie is a very accomplished adoption and surrogacy attorney. She has more than 30 years experience in this area of expertise, and she runs offices in Oklahoma, Colorado, and New York. Jeanie, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Well, let's dive into it, and let's talk about the definition of poverty. This is a rather relative term, and I want to start our conversation with you sharing with us your experience in your business and in your personal life with poverty. What kind of cases have you come across, and what kind of poverty have you come across growing up? Well, the fact is I grew up in Oklahoma in a rural environment, and I came from situational poverty for my mother, which also happened to my grandmother, where the men in their family had died young, usually in their early 40s or 50s, leaving the women destitute, even though my grandmother's family was actually very wealthy at one time. Because of situations like death, four generations, then it threw everyone into poverty, and so I grew up actually on a small three-acre plot of land where we grew and canned everything. And what we didn't have, we traded for, and my uncles would hunt and bring in the little bit of meat that we had. And so I grew up with my grandmother and my mother would not take any type of welfare, so they would work part-time when they could, and then we would survive off of my grandmother's social security, you know, from retirement, and then my mom bringing in a little bit of money when she worked part-time. So things were scarce, and so poverty, I grew up with a little of nothing. I didn't even have any clothes that were from a store until after age 12, where I really started throwing a fit about that. Now, of course, I'd like a tailor. I can't afford one. Lack of financial resources would be the definition of the poverty that you've encountered as a child. I think so. One of the reasons that I love this book and that I wanted to, when you asked me about doing this interview, that it was so special to me is that living through poverty and seeing not only financial, but how you struggled out of poverty. My family had a plan for me to get out of poverty since I was five years old. And for me, that was music. My great-aunt had, her family, like I said, had been wealthy, and they sent her to Chicago School of Music. And because of that, she went all over the United States and got all this training, and she was a music teacher in Bardesville, Oklahoma, where right town next to where I lived. And so every week we would actually go up there for piano lessons since age five, and there was a litany of things that I needed to do to actually throughout those years in order to actually escape poverty. And that plan worked. And so a lot of people actually do get out of poverty through various types of, you know, skill sets. Sometimes athletics. A lot of people will get out through athletics, but some people will get out through music, or they're very intelligent, and they have an opportunity to show that and to go to different events, and they will have mentors. And that is one of the main things that I believe this book brings and hits home that to climb out of poverty, you're going to need a mentor. Yes, I couldn't agree more. I enjoy this book exactly for this reason, because it points out that it's not just, poverty is not just lack of financial resources, it's actually lack of mentorship, lack of support, it could be childcare, it could be transportation, relationship, lack of relationships. And it shows that essentially we all could do something about it, because, you know, not living in poverty any longer, we can help those, if not with money, with definitely with mentorship and other kind of support. Right. This book in general is such a great, it explains it in a layman's point of view, not only for just an individual reading the book, but mainly for organizations out there that are in the community that are trying to help the poor. We have so many organizations that will try to help by throwing money at something and then not doing other things that are necessary. I think that those organizations are ill trained in the fact of what poverty is, and how you're going to actually help people and not just give them something for today. And that's why this book, there are so many strategies and skills in it for organizations such as social workers, doctors, nurses, things like that, who can actually help people on a daily basis with little tiny things that is so important. You don't have to be a PhD to do that. And the book also includes a lot of advice for companies that employ people living in poverty, because these people, their life is summarized by this concept of the tyranny of the moment, meaning that, you know, something happens and then the entire life rhythm is upended. And as an employer, if your employee is going through this, then you'll find yourself in the same situation, meaning under the tyranny of the moment, having to figure out how to bring in additional help and so on. So it's a book that it's good for us as community members. It's good for nonprofits that work with people living in poverty, also for companies that employ these people. Yes. Well, I think that in the book, it does show that, you know, first line and skills for the workers and for people who actually come into contact with people in poverty and in your employment. You want to know how to speak to people and how to explain things to people. Whereas the language in this book has a great little chart about the language, how it's different in poverty versus what middle class people speak. And explaining their jobs, having somebody who actually they can go to that's maybe assigned to them in the first month of employment, they can ask questions and they can actually get the timing of the job. Many people believe that people in poverty are stupid, but the fact of the matter is they're not. They're just like you and I on the intelligence scale. They're going to test the same. It's just the fact that they haven't had the opportunity and they just don't know the rules. And so this book talks about what all the rules are and how as a social worker, as a somebody who works for a not-for-profit, how you can really help them. And that's what I love about this book. Yes, the hidden rules, the things that one needs to know to move actually up or down in social status. And one of the worksheets in the book really got me thinking it was a set of questions about one's ability to live in poverty. So there are questions like do you know how to access various agencies for all sorts of documents that you may lose in the process of all these traumatic events you may be going through? Do you know how to hide your car from debt collectors? Do you know what are the churches that may offer meals and so on? Do you know how to move in the middle of the night, the moment's notice and make sure that you've got everything you need basically? That was a long list of questions and it just led me to believe and I agree with you that people in poverty actually have to be more creative, have to figure it out faster. Living in poverty is not about being intelligent, it's lack of support and it could be financial, it could be social capital, it could be health, it could be language, relationships and so on. Yes, I mean in my work what we try to do to help pregnant moms is to get them an ID and while you think gosh that's so simple, the fact is to get an ID you need a birth certificate and to get a birth certificate you have to have a litany of things to be able to do it and approve who you are and that's pretty problematic when you have no ID at all and so we have a whole set of systems that can help people get an ID because you can't go to work without an ID so it's like this circle of blockages for helping them to get a job and one of the things that they mentioned in the book that I saw firsthand growing up was churches. Churches are a first line of help to people in general to kids to going to their programs to getting meals at the church which was a big deal because you might be able to depending on the Wednesday night service or a special event for children which they generally have at least once a month but Wednesday night they usually have a meal, Sunday night sometimes they have a meal that's a big big deal for people in poverty because people in poverty sometimes only eat twice a day and that's you know that extra meal is huge so that along with the fact that people at the church know how to talk like the middle class and they will teach you how to do an interview if you ask them and if they see that you're struggling with getting a job then they can come and help you. There's a lot of things that churches do that they don't get any credit for we just hear them talk about religion but the fact of the matter is the people make up the church and the people in it have a lot of skills that can really help people in poverty. Yeah that's that's an excellent point because obviously they go beyond offering spiritual support they like you said they may offer some of these hidden rules of middle class and I want to go back to the topic of language and in the book there's a pretty good description of the differences between a kind of talk people of poverty in poverty do versus middle class and we're talking about differences in the grammar and the sentence structure so middle class people seem to be talk to have very well-formed sentences people living in poverty their discourse is more entertainment type there's no periods there's no commas it just goes on and humor is very valued and you need to know to appreciate that. The book also talks about how for instance poor people look at food versus middle class versus the wealthy for the poor people it's all about quantity for the middle class it's all about quality for the wealthy it's about presentation and provenance and things like that it was quite eye-opener. It is it is and and children who grow up in poverty I mean learning the hidden language will give you clues to who actually grew up in poverty because the truth is as an adult even when you climb out of poverty you really have all those tales right I mean anybody coming to my house or listening to me about food will know that my refrigerator is packed to the guilt all the time even though things are rotting even though I know the store is five minutes away um my pantry is packed everything is packed because I'm afraid deep down inside uh that I may not have enough food even though I know that's not true I know that's not true I know that I can grow my food if I had to and I know where to go uh to get free food so I know it's not true but I still have it um I think that learning who and what and and where they came from helps you to meet people where they're at you can't really help people unless you do that um in a non-judgmental way and um it also helps you when they have different uh ticks and they say things that are just really odd uh and you're like what is that uh and they use a lot of slang and people uh who who've come out of poverty will go back to that especially in times of stress so um people need to be understanding that and and uh work with that but yeah you know there are 37.2 million people in united states that are living in poverty according to I think a 2020 census and it it's an incredible number um and it makes me wonder what can we do about it and you also look at what's happening worldwide and you could see more poverty and um like who do you help first who do you start with is US poverty different than the you know people the refugees from Syria living in Turkey for years in a row now um in tents and with limited access to education or you know people that have been affected by COVID or by um sea level rises in Bangladesh who do you jump to help first how do you do this how do you cover it all well I think that that once you get to thinking broad term most people get overwhelmed and then they don't do anything um so what I tell people when they ask me is um start with your community start with um how you can help the homeless or the people in poverty um and because they're all around you right they're in these communities that we live in um help by volunteering at a not-for-profit or an organization that affects you in your community so um that that's what I think is the best idea I don't know I mean I feel really bad about all these people worldwide but if everybody could just help a little in their communities then at least we could take care of what's at home um and then maybe we could start looking out to other places and help them but I really think you probably should help that your neighbor um first first yes yes we couldn't agree more um you know the the authors state that there are three causes to poverty and one is the lack of affordable housing which we're experiencing here in Maui we're then in Hawaii we have a crisis in our hands right now when it comes to affordable housing and um the other cause is the fact that there is an attitude of called the NIMBY attitude not in not in my backyard meaning that you know developers and people generally don't want to see affordable housing projects in their neighborhood um and um last but not least the authors point out that the mortgage interest deduction is also contributing to poverty or is not limiting poverty and this was very interesting for me I haven't gotten a chance to research more about it why why that is but I'll definitely will do so do you have any input on these issues I don't have any input on the mortgage interest even though it's fascinating I'll look that up myself um but what I I do think that uh Hawaii is quite different than a lot of places right or at least um where um Maui is very different Hawaii has a very big homeless camp over there um what I'm seeing in the United States is people like Arizona that has um never seen homeless like they've seen and I believe an article came out just a few days ago where they had about 800 people living on the street uh that's an enormous amount of people in that heat and um we are seeing um a lot of people well they are seeing actually lots of people coming out of California buying affordable housing turning um you know it into uh rentals and upping the price thus making the working class and the working poor actually be shoved out of the housing market and go into the street um what the answer is I don't know but somebody needs to do something because we can't have a bunch of people in every major city living on the street uh first of all who allows that kind of thing I mean do we just not care about human beings now um I mean really who allows that and what are we going to do about that there has to be an answer um I know that Arizona was like well we're going to sanction so that you can have a tent city but I mean it's up really the answer I mean do we really want to say okay it's it's fine that you live on the street I mean you got sanitation problems you got trash problems you got uh where do they show or I mean you've got a million different issues uh when you allow things like that um so I think that the government ought to have some sort of viable solution um because I don't think that this is going to get any better I mean inflation is it what 40% that's quite a bit um I mean even if it goes down on on rentals yes or living exactly and if and if you think about this the fact is if you get pushed down into the street and you live in a tent all your possessions are in the tent and um theft is rampant so you go to work and you come back and if you don't have anybody watching your stuff or maybe the person watching your stuff isn't watching it well enough and they steal from you then basically you're getting just a little bit of money and then you're going to have to replace all the stuff that they stole making it even harder to actually get into um a low-income housing the other thing is is that people in poverty need an address that's the biggest thing um they can't get a birth certificate sent to someplace which is almost all the birth certificates after COVID are online and um but if you don't have a post office monitor you don't have a place to send your mail yeah um there's what are you gonna do about that there's nothing and if you go to a bank over a bank account they want no address what if you don't have one where are you gonna do now it's interesting how how these things can be such i mean major challenge yeah such barriers yeah major barriers which seems so simple to the rest of us right we don't even think about it in the middle class you don't even think about who's going to have your address uh or where you're going to send mail but in the real world that's a big deal well i feel like i definitely want to figure out or learn more about how to solve this affordable housing um issue in i i look at maui as a social experiment because many people have left primarily middle class and the ones that have returned are not people that require that will you know fill in those jobs on the contrary they will need to be provided services by people in middle class and people living in poverty so it's the biggest social experiment at this point and i'm waiting to see how it will unfold but um genie i thank you so much for joining me today it's always wonderful to talk with you about just anything so i'm sure you'll you'll i hope you'll be back on the show i will i will thank you for having me i i enjoyed it this book has been a favorite of mine for years i know you recommended it to our book club and it was absolutely excellent and i it stuck with me over the years and i'm so glad that it's been updated and um enhanced so uh to all our viewers i hope that you will read this book and i hope that you will feel inspired to do something in your community to reduce poverty and um until next time a hui hou thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo