| Add Sixteen-year-old Monica, left, plays solitaire on a laptop as her brothers Cesar and Jonathan watch TV in the tiny apartment they share with four additional family members. Stretches of Los Angeles and Orange counties have some of the most crowded housing in the country. (Christina House / For The Times) |
Throughout the course I have learned how poverty has been a contributing factor to negative familial issues from the couple’s relationship to the children’s health and well-being. In module 12, a video is shown about a homeless, african american family that has to resort to sleeping in a homeless shelter and in their own car because the mom’s full-time job is insufficient to afford them an apartment. Bringing this back locally, there is another type of unseen poverty that people might not be aware happening around us in Orange County; overcrowding housing.
Overcrowded housing is basically different multiple families living under the same house. For instance, in many cases, a house with four bedrooms might have a different family per room. Most families are around 3 to 4 four family members. Thus, for just a 4 bedroom house we might be talking about 12 to 16 people under the same roof. I know this from experience. My last residence was the most overcrowded place my family has ever lived in. Every available space in the house was used including the living room, garage, and even the driveway as one person slept in their car. As a full-time student and my husband being the only breadwinner, we could not afford anything else. What is even worse, that in the same house we lived in, all the couples were both employed and still couldn’t afford suitable housing.
An article in the Los Angeles times by Reyes and Menezes describe the Los Angeles County and Orange County as having “more than half of the nation's most heavily crowded neighborhoods, with rising rents far outpacing incomes” (Reyes and Menezes,2014). Overcrowding housing is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. Reyes and Menezes describe in their article that “UCLA and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found that children in crowded homes have poorer health, worse scores on math and reading tests and more behavioral and emotional problems — such as tantrums and depression — even when poverty is taken into account” (2014).
It is extremely devastating having to live in this situation especially when one is doing all that is possible. I know I am. My family doesn’t take any type of governmental aid such as food stamps, wic, or calfresh. The only assistance we would want to have, while I finish my degree and bring in a second income, would be affordable housing. Unfortunately, in all of Orange County affordable housing lists are either closed or have a waiting list of around 10 years! Thus, as of now, we are just forced to make this sacrifice and trying to mitigate all the negative impacts it has on our family including our two preschool age boys.
One of the things I did not hear in the poverty videos in Module 12 was how public policy has a great impact in allowing families to have access to affordable housing. As a Public Administration major, I have supplemented my experience, by taking this course, as know I have knowledge on the sociological familial necessities for the families health and well being. This is a great tool for me as a citizen and future public administrator to fulfill the needs of the community I live in and will be serving.
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