I drive a 2012 Cube, my husband a 2006 Cherokee, and my son a 1999 Focus that I recently paid $1100 to fix. In other words, we have reliable vehicles and the money to fix them when they break down. Our small northeastern Pennsylvania city has public bus service, and offers reduced fares for seniors and people with disabilities or special needs.
Three years ago, my friend Cheryl lived here. Now, she’s virtually stranded in a Georgia city of less than 5,000. Google Maps says it’s 43.3 miles--1 hour and 43 minutes-- from Alpharetta, a wealthy Atlanta suburb.
In her area, to be without a reliable car is to be unemployed. And Cheryl is close to that, for a stupid reason: she drives a decidedly unreliable 1992 Nissan. More below the squiggle.
Cheryl works as a home health care aide. All of her $10-an-hour assignments are in the Alpharetta/Roswell areas. There’s no public transportation in her small city that would get her there in less than 3 hours, including transfers. But that’s moot; she can afford neither the fare nor an apartment close to MARTA service.
I’ve visited Atlanta just once, so I don’t know the area at all. But an article in The Atlantic sheds light on what Cheryl, and car-less poor folks there and in impoverished suburbs of wealthy cities, are up against.
Many Atlantans have historically opposed transit in their neighborhoods because of the assumption that anyone who uses transit is poor…. In 2012, [Nathaniel Smith, the founder of Partnership for Southern Equity] and others were disappointed when the Atlanta regional area—including suburbs like Gwinnett—had the opportunity to approve a $7.2 billion transportation plan that would have been funded by a 1 percent sales tax. Instead, voters rejected the tax, and Atlanta’s traffic and transit woes continued to grow. Many parts of the far-flung, wealthier suburbs voted against the tax, while some pockets of suburbs, including parts of Gwinnett County, supported it.
No car, no paycheck. That’s Cheryl’s reality. Although her clients love her, and her agency knows she works hard and offers excellent care, it calls her for assignments less and less. Her car breaks down too often.
Life wasn’t always this hard. We met because our sons were friends, in and out of small-time trouble, and we commiserated, as mothers do--mostly by phone, because she was always at work. Even then, she just scraped by, but her assignments were fairly local.
Still, in a weak economy, the work dried up. That’s when they moved to that small Georgia city, where she had relatives. I bought their bus tickets and prayed their lives would get better. They didn’t. Tired of sharing their home, the relatives asked them to leave.
They wound up in a shelter in downtown Atlanta. During that time, her brother gave her the Nissan, and it ran well enough then that she worked every job she was offered. After a year, her mother died and she received a small inheritance—just enough to rent an apartment.
Of course, the place she could afford was far from public transportation. Actually, she ended up back in the same small city she’d left. They have cell phones but no furniture (remember, she moved in from a shelter), internet or TV.
So this is her life today--trying to get to work, often unable to afford the gas to drive 2 hours and back (her agency doesn’t pay for that), walking when her car strands her by the side of the road.
She is not one in a million, I know. She is one of a million, and more: Deeply impoverished, with no car, no public transportation and few prospects for a job.
But Cheryl’s fierce. She doesn’t give up.
A year ago, on my birthday, she and her son rented a car to drive to New York to see relatives. Rented a car! A luxury. They stopped in on their way back to Georgia. Cheryl had a present for me: a bouquet of carnations.
Our sons went off, and we sipped coffee and talked. She was happy to see me, and happy that she would make the long drive ahead in a car that wouldn’t stall when she was doing 65 on the highway. I still have my bouquet. It reminds me of who Cheryl is: a woman in poverty digs deep to give people flowers on their birthdays.
With your help, I’d like to give her a gift: a reliable used car. I’ve been a member of DK since 2008 and contributed to others when I could. While I have mostly lurked of late, all I can think of to do is to ask you to help if you can.
I’ve set up a PayPal: FundForChery@gmail.com. With a reliable car, the agency will give her assignments again. That means a full, regular paycheck. And that means she can “put money to the side,” as she says, to get her life, and her son’s, back on track. Things still won’t be easy, but they will be immeasurably better.
Any amount you can spare would be deeply appreciated. That said, if donations reach $3500, I will make it an even 5K. Reliable used cars aren’t as cheap as they used to be. If you have a reliable car that you could donate, that would be great, too. (In that case, I'd deactivate the PayPal.)
Also, if you’re in the metro Atlanta area and can offer a lead on job-placement services please Kosmail me. She’s worked as a home health care aide and a dietary aide in hospitals, but any job in a service industry would work. (Ditto if you can donate and deliver a piece of furniture—right now, they’re sleeping on the floor.)
Kosmail me and I’ll answer any questions you have so you can feel confident that I’m legit. I used to be jvantin1 here but had to drop that name because of computer issues. I’m sure there’s a record of my emails as I tried to resolve the issue.
Thank you for reading. If you can’t swing a donation, please pray for her and her son, and for all who live in poverty in this land of plenty.