Economy strains neighborly feelings in North Carolina BLOG 6

Economy strains neighborly feelings in North Carolina

Anna Sophia Riley
Feb. 20, 2012
3:00 PM

This article is about a small town in North Carolina, and the struggles they're having with being able to afford basic needs such as having running water and shelter. The article is written from a third person perspective, but it basically briefly tells the story from a rather original angle, that of the woman forced to turn off services to her family and friends.
    The article is about the community of Roper, NC, population 617. Ms. Dorenda Gatling is the patron featured in the article, the author talks about her job working at the Town Hall. He observes her relationship with those who come to pay bills, etc. The one town member the article focuses on is the Bishop Robert Mallory. The article talks about how he has been forced to lose access to water in both the church and his own home on multiple occasions. He lost his paying job, and is now forced to live on a very small part his church members tithes, which are dwindling themselves, due to the lack of jobs, and increases in layoffs and foreclosures in the small town.
    This article also displays some numbers that are shocking. 27% of Roper's citizens live below the poverty line, and the town budget is a mere $360k per year. The average income is a couple thousand below the federal levels for an average family of four, and most struggle to find work, when they do it's often in nearby communities or simply seasonal opportunities.
    Roper is just one of many American towns suffering from this new-age greater depression. Forced to choose between one of the other, families feed children, and pay for gas etc. to reach jobs just maintain minimal income. While most of the economical issues we read about are on a large scale, pertaining to government budget increases or decreases, federal bailouts, international economic destruction, etc. we seem to forget that those things effect these things; families choosing between bread and water, children wearing old shoes, and parents moving to one bedroom subsidized housing just to keep their families together and afloat. This article is a new perspective on the scale of entries I've been making, which have all been about millions or billions, not hundreds and thousands.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-town-clerk-20120220,0,7703450.story