Every Day, We Ignore the Everyday Poor

"The lives of poor people are very hidden from policymakers," says Cindy Mann, director of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families. "The idea that some people don't have $10 for a co-pay for a doctor is unbelievable to them.

"Will Congress go forward with these cuts?" she asks. Or will members "understand what Katrina showed them -- a powerful glimpse of people's extensive needs?"

In fact, the entrenched, run-of-the-mill poor are largely invisible to most of us. Riveting TV footage showed us, in heartbreaking detail, many of the horrors endured by Katrina's survivors.

But I knew nothing about the man who approached my car -- whether his life story would have touched or disgusted me, whether he's an unrepentant alcoholic or someone more "worthy."

Like most people, rich or poor, his life's details were hidden from me.

Most people I know work hard for every dollar. They hate the notion of people who won't work being rewarded for their indolence. Some people, they suspect, deserve their poverty.

But what child chooses hunger? What youngster deserves caregivers who lack the drive or wherewithal to feed, house and nurture them?

How can we tell who's who?

Last week, Washington legal secretary Debbie Holland and her New Orleans-born husband, Maximillon, took five of their now-homeless family members into their three-bedroom Fort Washington home. The outpouring from co-workers, friends and complete strangers who've donated air mattresses, canned goods, toiletries, clothing and cash to help Holland's guests, who range in age from 9 to 48, keeps Holland on the brink of tears.

She, too, is struck by how generously Americans are giving -- more than $1 billion to date -- to their fellow citizens, some of whom just weeks ago might have been regarded as "undeserving."

"People think 'regular' poor people don't do enough to get ahead -- so they give here, they give there," Holland, 46, says. "There has to be a major catastrophe before we do what really needs to be done."

Holland, who has opened her home to those in need before, says she gives because of her "There but for the grace of God" attitude.

"I had parents who maybe weren't educated to the degree that I am now, but they stepped up; they gave me tools for success," she explains. "Not everybody's parents do that. It's a vicious circle -- parents are in poverty, so their kids . . . don't know anything different."

Holland hopes that playing host to relatives who were struggling even before Katrina hit will give her daughter, Nicole, 13, more appreciation of other people's difficulties, and of what can happen "in a blink of an eye."

It's a reminder many of us could use.

"There are two Americas -- and one is very hidden except in disasters like . . . Katrina," Mann says. "But if we looked around more, we could see, and learn from, [poor] people. They are cleaning our buildings and our homes, working at our groceries and laundries. They live in hidden neighborhoods.

"But they cross our paths every day. And we rely so much on them and their labor."