Poverty deepens its hold on some metro-east communities

Numbers don't usually tell the whole story. And sometimes they contradict what people on the street see every day.

That was the case with those asked to respond to data about the percentage of families living in poverty released Tuesday as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey five-year estimate. This survey was based on data gathered from questionnaires sent to about 3 million households nationwide every year between Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2009.

Some metro-east communities saw dramatic changes in their poverty levels compared with data compiled for the 2000 census count.

The largest increase was in the city of Madison, a town of an estimated 4,254 residents, which saw the percentage of families living in poverty more than double from the 2000 count to 31.1 percent. This level is more than three times Illinois' overall rate of 9.1 percent.

Madison Mayor John W. Hamm III didn't see that coming.

"Wow," Hamm said. "I would have to disagree with the numbers."

Hamm, who also oversees the city's public housing department, said he had not noticed an increase in the demand for public housing or rental assistance vouchers.

"We do have a waiting list," he said, but added it has stayed steady over the years.

Hamm said no major employers have left the community in the last decade, and the nearby Gateway International Raceway, which closed in October, only employed five or six Madison residents.

The only noticeable increase in economic troubles has been an increase in foreclosures, Hamm said.

"That's the economy," he said.

The effects of the economy have been readily apparent to Cyra Lohman, director of development for the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis.

Lohman was surprised by the numbers but for a different reason. They showed East St. Louis experienced only a 1.6 percent increase in the percentage of families living in poverty.

By many indicators, Lohman has seen a far more noticeable increase in poverty among the community the center serves.

One indicator is that 2,500 parents requested gifts as part of the center's annual Adopt-a-Child for Christmas program, in which families from throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area fulfill gift wish lists for about 800 children who live in the Samuel L. Gompers public housing development. This demand has grown consistently from 100 requests when the program started 23 years ago, she said.

Lohman also said the ministry's food pantry has been in high demand since the national economic recession hit.

"(The pantry) got hit harder than ever in 2007 and 2008 -- and even now," she said.

Joe Hubbard, coordinator of Catholic Urban Programs for the Belleville Catholic Diocese, agreed with Lohman: Things have gotten worse, in some cases much worse, across Southern Illinois, he said.

He was especially surprised by, and incredulous of, the Census Bureau's statistics for Belleville and Cahokia that showed the slightest of decreases in the percentage of poor families.

"I now see more (poverty) in Belleville than in 2003," he said. "We see more people are working part-time jobs but are struggling more."

Hubbard blamed many factors, including a decrease in public assistance for poor families, and jobs lost to a downturn in the economy, to globalization and to workers being replaced by machines.

Why the poverty data may not reflect on-the-ground realities in every case could be for a variety reasons, including that the survey is only an estimated based on a sample of the population as opposed to the 2000 census count, which attempted to get every household's income level. For example, only 2,774 Belleville residents out of an estimated 41,142 total residents participated in the survey. And the survey collects data on an ongoing, monthly basis and asks for a respondent's income over the "past 12 months," as opposed to the 2000 census, which collected the income data for a fixed period of time, during 1999.

Whatever the reason, Hubbard was shocked by the numbers.

"Cahokia has to really have changed," Hubbard said before being informed of the opposite by a reporter. "Because I see more families requesting help for Cahokia then I ever did -- more than East St. Louis. (The reason is) lost of income most of the time. I don't think the census would pick this up."