The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 12

THE SUN SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1990 Fofmany on Eastern Shore, employment no longer is a. cure for poverty THE RURAL POOR Forty-two percent of rural workers earn too little to lift a family of four out of poverty. The majority of rural poor do not receive benefits from the government's major welfare programs except for lunch programs. 0 Most rural poor who can work, do work. One study found that 70 percent of able-bodied rural poor work.

Many of the rest are single mothers with children. Two out of three rural poor families have at least one worker. One in four rural poor families has two workers. Wages are low in rural areas: One or near the minimum wage, i. r-" i i i .1 POVERTY LEVELS EXCEED WAGE The gap between minimum-wage Income and the government- established poverty level At minimum wage of $3.80 an hour, S5 375 Nln annual net Income WijL totals $7,300.

I. XTflln 1 MM! Minimum-wage job is" insufficient for expenses POOR, from 1A Is 'a hard-working, churchgolng maintenance man at a clam processing plant. The couple live with their four children and Mrs. Thomas' brother In a small, worn-down house on the edge of a soybean field outside Pocomoke City. JTtThey are trying to protect their family.

Mrs. Thomas said her brother drinks and will not leave the house, which belonged to their parents. She Is adamant about getting her children away from a household of alcohol and tension. But her husband's $6-an-hour pay would not stretch to cover rent anywhere else. It Just keeps the family In food and clothes, heat and water, and pays for the car Mr.

Thomas needs to get to work. "I'm going to step out on faith," vows Mrs. Thomas. 1 don't want my family here." Or take Charlotte Hltchens. Because her husband, Johnnie, works for a company that lays underground cable they cannot qualify for a public assistance medical card.

The Job has no health and they cannot afford It on their own. in October, Mr. Hltchens, 47, had a heart attack. The hospital already called me wanting a substantial down payment," said Mrs. Hltchens, on the day her husband had surgery.

"I said, 'Ma'am, where do you think I'm going to get It? The one who was the main bread-winner of the house is laying back in your More worrisome Is their Immediate fate. The Hitchenses live with their two young children and Mrs. Hltchens' grandmother in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment In rural Pittsvllle. While Mr. Hltchens is off work recovering, they cannot afford the $135-a-week rent.

The landlady is understanding, said Mrs. Hltchens, but the family could become homeless. "I don't know. I don't know what will happen," said Mrs. Hltchens, sobbing.

"God knows I've worked so hard to make a home. I don't want to lose it" The chances are not good for any of these families. Where employment Poverty-level Income determined by U.S. Government $0,311 $8,076 $9,885 $12,675 $14,090 Single Two- Three- Four- Five-person person person person person family family family family Approximate nt Income alter payroll tax deduction. ii 'i Amr iwurwi THE SUNJED KRSCHBAUM Edna Thomas holds her 4-month-old daughter, Ronata, at their cramped home in Pocomoke City.

With her are her other children (left to right), Sylvia Danielle, Clifton, 22; and Donta, 13. Sources: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "Poverty In Rural America" and laboring lor but Poor In Rural U.S. Census Bureau Poverty Statistics Division; The Urban Institute: "Tax Credits lor the Working Poor." so he mused. "Why do I work so hard? Just trying to keep my head above water. If I slack off, I know exactly what would happen, and I don't want to lose what little I do have." For the poor, any ripple of misfortune Is enough to submerge therh.

They have no reserve. James Thomas worked for 17 years at a plywood plant In Pocomoke City. He managed to raise a family on what he made moving logs about the lumberyard with a forklift. But three years ago, the company stopped making plywood and laid off Its workers. The Thomases' rent $375 a month, and they soon lost their home.

They moved In with Mrs. Thomas' mother. Then their oldest son, Clifton, became mysteriously disabled and, at age 22, needs constant care. Then the youngest daughter, Ronata, was born last summer. "Every time I think I'm about to go to work, here comes another baby or something else," said Mrs.

Thomas, who is 42. "If I worked, it would cost me more. I wouldn't even make enough to pay for day care." Mr. Thomas got a Job in the clam factory nearby at three-fourths the wages he earned in 1987. He keeps the machines running that cook huge vats of clams and siphon the Juicy meat Into cans for the grocery stores.

The house Is too small for the family. It Is backed up against a windbreak of pine and maple trees, but a newspaper is Jammed Into the door frame to keep out the cold. The house looks across a flat field now shorn bald for the winter. It is an expansive view, wide with promise, but only for those who own the land or farm It. Mr.

Thomas does neither. He is an affable man with a 'handsome family. Sylvia, 6, clings to his strong arm as he talks, and 13-year-old Donta listens with the seriousness of an adult as his father explains what keeps them going. Mrs. Thomas bounces the baby on her lap.

"It gets pretty rough sometimes," said Mr. Thomas. "Sometimes the bills get to be higher. Sometimes, we've got to pay a little bit on the utility bill to pay off another bill. Sometimes we've got to improvise.

"When It gets too much, I look to the Lord to see what is the most needful area," said Mr. Thomas. "I know that God hasn't stopped performing miracles. And sometimes we need a miracle." THE SUNJED KIRSCHBAUM groceries awaiting pickup. jrural areas are not steady, full-time work.

Some employers keep their workers on reduced hours to avoid having to pay benefits. Many rural occupations are seasonal. "I don't care how hard you work. You can't bring home $200 clear," said Grace Brittingham, 50, who gets up at 4 a.m. to go to a poultry plant 30 miles from her home In Worcester County on Maryland's lower Eastern Shore.

"But you got to live on It, because it's the only choice you got." Mrs. Brittingham works the day shift, tagging boxes of chicken with labels: breasts, wings, thighs, wing-necks. She must stamp each label, a thousand-a-day repetition that has left her right wrist with painful ten IS 3 1 I t-, Feisty nun fights a losing war on poverty in three hourly rural workers is at Ironically, because many rural poor work and own a house of some sort, they pay taxes that are high In proportion to their Income. The minimum-wage Jobs no longer keep them above poverty, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities In Washington. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, full-time work at the minimum wage paid enough to lift a family of three above the poverty line, the study found.

But by 1989, that Job would leave such a family 30 percent below the poverty line. The minimum wage rose to $3.80 an hour on April 1 the first Increase in nine years. Many low-paying Jobs available In much again In donated food. And still It is swamped by poverty. The architect of this effort Is a steamroller in a nun's habit, a gray-haired paladin for the poor.

Sister Mary Elizabeth, after a half-century of working with the needy, still rages at the Injustice she sees and laughs at herself while doing It. "I hate Injustice. Hardship Is nothing. If only the poor would know, they are so much better off than the rich," said the woman who fights so fiercely for the poor and so gleefully pricks the rich. "There's no sense to this," she says of her endless task.

Then she adds, with a sudden delighted cack-. le: "We're all so crazy. Ehl I'll be glad to die." "Mae" Gintling. daughter of a Baltimore mechanic, was a nursing nun for 21 years. She left her order at age 50 to work with the poor in the ghet- GIVING A man waits for assistance at Joseph House in Salisbury, near bagged once was a remedy for poverty, It Is no longer sufficient to cure It.

The economics are out of kilter: Good-paying rural occupations like mining and timber have faltered, replaced If at all by low-wage manufacturing and service Jobs. Wages have dropped, and costs have risen. According to one survey, more than three out of four rural poor families pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing, the government standard for "affordabil-lty." Some pay 70 percent. Food at small country stores often costs more. And If the poor have a Job to get to, they usually have the cost of owning a car to get there.

66 As soon as the poor hear about you, you're JinishedL You're SISTER MARY ELIZABETH Works with needy a half-century The sisters and their volunteers Inside must open the door guardedly and allow a few to squeeze in at a time, for fear of being overrun. "As soon as the poor hear about you, you're finished. You're overwhelmed," sighed Sister Mary Elizabeth. The 75-year-old Roman Catholic nun runs a program that Includes five nuns and a hundred volunteers, passes out $200,000 to $300,000 a year in money and distributes as Wt HAVE A GIFT FOR maevs dinitis. She now uses her left.

Her husband, Leonard, 50, unloads the boxes from trailers at the same plant. The boxes ride up an elevator to the assembly line, but Mr. Brittingham must walk the steps, dozens of times a day. He Is weary, but he never skips a day. There are too many bills to pay, he said.

"Lots of times when you go to get your groceries, you see stuff you want to get, but you can't," he said. "You spend $80 to $90 a week and still don't get everything you need." The big, heavyset working man Is slowed by the accumulated toll of the years: Mr. Brittingham has worked at the poultry plant for 29 years. "I ask myself, 'Why have I stayed A decade later, she again put on her habit. In partnership with a 22-year-old volunteer, Patricia Guidera, they established an order called the Little Sisters of Jesus and Mary and set out to minister to the poor of the Eastern Shore.

Joseph House in Salisbury resulted. The need Is there. In 1980, the last year for which state-by-state da-, ta are available, Maryland's 1 1 percent rural poverty rate was higher than the state's 9.7 percent metropolitan poverty rate. Of the 51,000 rural poor in the state, 69 percent lived on the Eastern Shore. The counties nearest Joseph House, Wicomico, Somerset, Worcester and Dorchester, consistently rank among the poorest In the state.

Tuesday through Thursday, the nuns and volunteer helpers give out more than 500 bags of groceries to poor people who have trouble feeding their families. Thirteen local churches alternate serving nearly 1 00 hot lunches each day. And in three hours on those days, 35 or 40 poor people crowd in to appeal for money to meet their needs. The staff interviews them and checks on rent bills and utility cutoff notices. On any day, the sisters may give out $3,000 to $4,000.

It is all from contributions. They have no government funds. Sister Mary Elizabeth has no delusions about those at her doorstep. She scolds and admonishes them for the rashly spent dollar or the squandered Job opportunity. But she insists, to the skepticism of her coworkers, that "I'm an incredible softy.

I can't say no." Her deeper anger Is at the circumstances that keep those trying to climb out of poverty from succeeding. The trap Is deliberately set by some employers, she said. "You have companies that are trying to keep people poor," she said. "They are hiring at the same time they are firing. They are firing when the employee Is getting near the point where they would have to pay him benefits or a higher salary." She offers her views withsome By Doug Struck Sun Staff Correspondent SALISBURY When she came 14 years ago, the local officials told her there were no poor people here.

Now, three days a week, the poor snake in a ragged line of misery up to the entrance of Joseph House, the place Sister Mary Elizabeth Gintling founded to help them. They come from Salisbury and fron) deep In the rural countryside. They walk In or drive battered old Jalopies or hitch rides, to get here. Joseph House can help them, they believe. They need money to pay the rent.

Or groceries to feed hungry children. Or Just the hot lunch served by one of the local churches. They press up against the entrance of the converted storage building in a siege of supplication. a Tomorrow, you can purchase super saving certificates for use with perm wave appointments you make within the next year. Includes shampoo, cut and styling.

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tos of Baltimore, establishing Joseph House there. ate itllf i THE SUrJED KR9CHBMM SISTER MART ELIZABETH Founder of Joseph House trepidation. Each time she criticizes the businessmen, she loses contributions, she said. Donations from two of the largest local employers, Perdue poultry and Campbell's Soup, keep her food pantry well-stocked for the needy. But she sees mothers and husbands go day after day to grueling Jobs, only to find that their paycheck is less than they could get on welfare, she said.

She sees the mechanical routine of assembly-line Jobs wreck the arms of workers, who desperately keep on working until they can no longer lift their children at home, she said. She sees outrageous rents, arid company-store fees for transportation and clothing. So shCspeaks out. "There's a lot of injustice," she said. "Here are companies that don't care.

When the employees can't work, they Just get another person. "You can only help people who want to be helped." said Sister Mary Elizabeth. "But when you see a person who tries, it's really sad when they don't get a break.".