THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220171
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERRI WILLIAMS AND MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 57 lines
Jobs. Full-time jobs. Adequate jobs. Jobs that can support a person, a family.
That was the No. 1, if not surprising, priority of residents meeting Tuesday night at forums in Norfolk and Suffolk to talk about poverty.
A lot of the people who participated in the local segments of a ``National Dialogue on Poverty'' worked in agencies that deal with the poor. Some were business people, others teachers. Politicians turned out.
And then there were people for whom the discussion was anything but academic. Grandison Johnson, an unemployed landscaper living in a Norfolk homeless shelter, complained at the forum held at Norfolk State University that the $4.25-an-hour minimum wage is inadequate for self-sufficiency.
``You break your back out there, hot as it is,'' he said. ``Come next Friday, you don't have $150 (to take home). You're going to do something wrong'' to get more money.
Veleka Perry, a 24-year-old Norfolk mother of two, said she is trained as a licensed practical nurse but hasn't found a job in six years. She's been in a welfare training program for eight months.
At Suffolk's Nansemond River High School, Phyllis Jones of the Parker-Riddick housing project said she's trying to escape poverty, but a disability has thrown her off course the past two years.
``I want to move out of public housing,'' Jones said. ``I want a better life for my children. It's a standstill, but not a stumbling block.''
She's pinning hopes on a family-investment program at her housing complex that helps residents learn computer, work and life skills.
The forums - in Norfolk with more than 70 participants and Suffolk with about 20 - were sponsored by the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project or STOP Organization, a nonprofit anti-poverty agency. The local talks were among hundreds around the country conducted or planned from April through June as part of a ``National Dialogue on Poverty.'' The object is to get low-income Americans involved in determining their needs and possible solutions to poverty, and publicizing those needs and solutions. The effort is sponsored by the National Association of Community Action Agencies.
After jobs, both urban and rural residents Tuesday said they need safe, adequate housing. They also talked about basic needs and getting people more post-high school training and education and decreasing violent crime.
Residents decried the effects of poverty: the obvious, broken families, teen pregnancies - and not-so-obvious, such as the lost hope from seeing blocks of folks in the same predicament and the frustration of having to make do in a small apartment with little hope of having a house like your parents had.
STOP staffer Natasha Maben, who works in the Churchland section of Portsmouth, said in Suffolk that she's puzzled that so few people take advantage of the free programs that help the poor find jobs and educational skills.
Albert Jones, a real-estate broker, said at the Suffolk forum that he worked two jobs when he was 15. His grandmother instilled values in him that helped him succeed.
``Even though we were poor, I didn't feel like we were in poverty,'' Jones said. ``There was a lot of love in the home.'' by CNB