In recent years poverty has been an emerging trend throughout Johnson County. From simply cutting back to homelessness, increasing numbers of Johnson County residents are struggling financially. Although the numbers clearly indicate this trend, much of the population is still blind to the severity of the situation.
“People here hide it [poverty] well,” Julie Marshall, Community Social Services Manager for the Blue Valley Multi-Service Center said. “You are definitely less likely to know if a family is struggling because there is a lot of pride here.”
For the most part, families just want to blend in and not draw attention to any financial problems they may be dealing with. Thousands of families are accomplishing this and are able to hide their difficulty, even to those closest to them. According to the United Community Services of Johnson County, as of 2009, there were 38,000 people living in poverty in our county.
“They want to be just like everybody else and most of the time the families were well off,” Marshall said. “But the recession has been hard on the nation and Johnson County alike. Families may still have the material items from before – like a car or the clothes – but they may be barely eating or not using certain rooms in their house to reduce utility costs.”
Most people won’t recognize this problem unless they go looking for it and even then it is not as obvious as it is portrayed.
“Personally, I think that because of the reputation that Johnson County has, many don’t believe that there is a problem,” Suzanne Hicks, a volunteer at Johnson County Interfaith Hospitality Network said. “There are excellent schools and lovely neighborhoods, so people just don’t see it. I used to live in Washington D.C. and [poverty and homelessness] was much more evident there.”
The homeless community in Johnson County, that the Interfaith Hospitality Network helps, looks a lot different then what one would imagine homelessness to appear. There aren’t families living on the streets holding up signs, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t here. Homelessness in Johnson County mostly consists of living with relatives or finding a church that provides shelters for families.
“Our guests [at the Interfaith Hospitality Network] are usually situationally homeless as opposed to chronically homeless,” Hicks said. “We provide shelter and an environment for guests to search for jobs. The guests will meet with our director and she helps them to put together a plan. Whether it be a budgeting plan or a way to help them find a job. Our objective is to get our guests working, find them a place to live and get them back into the community.”
The Johnson County Interfaith Hospitality Network is only one of two family homeless shelters in our county. But the community does find ways to help the growing number of families in need.
“People out here are amazing, generous and thoughtful and they want to help make a difference,” Marshall said. “There is such an emphasis on community service here and on the idea to think beyond yourself. I am lucky to have such a good relationship with the community service clubs and with the schools. The schools are able to refer families to us, as well as help us to find volunteers.”
Marshall said that the summertime is when they tend to run low on food. This is because all of the kids that were eating free and reduced school lunches are now needing to eat at home.
According to the Johnson County Interfaith Hospitality Networks web page, the number of children who qualify for free or reduced cost school lunches has grown by double digits in each of Johnson County’s six school districts in recent years. There has been an 84 percent increase in the Blue Valley School District alone.
But this summer, the pantry did a lot better than previous years and the number of donations increased along side the number of those who needed the food.
For those who know and are working to help their neighbors, there are even more residents who don’t understand what is actually going on right here at home.
“A lot of people don’t think that we have poverty here,” Marshall said. “But all you really have to do is have the conversation.”