Coping with poverty: Simulation helps others understand the challenges of financial insecurity

People stood in lines, rifled through the papers in their hands and rushed to the next station.

They had to stop by the food bank, check in with probation and parole, meet with a human services representative and more, all while trying to find work, cash paychecks, feed their kids and know where they'd be sleeping each night.

"They won't cash my paycheck," one man said.

"I'm a felon," a woman said.

"I missed payday," yet another person said.

The Cost of Poverty Experience, or COPE, simulation Tuesday provided real scenarios to help people understand what millions of Americans go through every day as they navigate poverty and homelessness.

Kaylynn Raugh, a community engagement specialist with Community Action Partnership said 16,500 people in Kootenai County were living below the federal poverty line, according to the 2020 census.

"And that was pre-COVID," Raugh said. "Now, with the influx of people that have come to Kootenai — there's a huge housing crisis, people are losing their jobs, inflation — we have got way, way, way more people. We don't have the exact count because we haven't done the census, but you can betcha it's more than that."

She said one of the biggest things people can do to support those living in poverty is to stop saying, "Why don't they just get a job?"

"It's more than that," she said.

She said many of those living in poverty and in the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) population are working, sometimes multiple jobs, and still aren't making a livable wage.

"When you have multiple people in your household and only one income, you're not making that livable wage anymore, because it goes up the more people you have in your household," Raugh said. "What we can do as a community is to reach out and see what we can do to make things more streamlined. What can we do to make applications less complicated? People want to be helpful — this is what they can do. Just little things in their own organizations."

Simulation participant Nicole Rumpel works in community outreach at Avista where she works with members of vulnerable populations. In the scenario she was given for the simulation, she was a member of an immigrant family of five.

"Two are here illegally, and the baby and two others are here legally," she said.

In Rumpel's simulated family unit was Hanna Liebenau, who, with her husband, coordinates the food program at Real Life Ministries in Post Falls.

"We want to actually sense what everyone is going through who is in poverty," she said. "We work with people who are in poverty and help them with food and resources."

Her simulated persona was illegally in the U.S., trying to find help without a Social Security number.

"I have to work under the table," she said. "I can't get a regular job because I don't have any credentials."

The event was held in the Community United Methodist Church in Coeur d'Alene and hosted by Community Action Partnership, a network of private nonprofit and public organizations created to combat poverty.

Event coordinator Jesse Quintana with Community Action Partnership in Lewiston said this role-playing event serves as an opportunity for those who have never experienced poverty to understand its dynamics. Although it was just one day, the simulation was set in the course of a month, with timers sounding to let people know when a week was over.

"This gives the opportunity for them to experience the life of a family in poverty and to understand the challenges that may come along with that," Quintana said. "The thing that's great about this is these are actual real family stories. They get to live the life of a family that actually lived in poverty and experience all those challenges, and then try to survive a month in poverty with the resources that they have."