Nearly 40 percent of those in extreme poverty living in lower-income Tucson neighborhoods skip meals, according to a study by University of Arizona sociology students.
Half of those in extreme poverty use governmental assistance monthly, but more than half have never accessed help from charitable organizations, the study also showed.
Those are just some of the findings of the 2015 Tucson Wellbeing Survey, conducted by undergraduate students enrolled in a poverty workshop in the UA’s sociology department.
The students presented their findings at the Habitat for Humanity Tucson headquarters on North Mountain Avenue on Friday. More than 100 community members, city officials, nonprofit organizers and educators gathered for the presentation.
The students surveyed 257 households in eight neighborhoods designated by Census as having high poverty rates. The survey included questions about housing, food insecurity, income levels, family structure, disabilities and use of governmental or charitable assistance.
The survey, which is funded in part by grants and support from Habitat for Humanity Tucson, Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, began following the formation of the city’s poverty commission, according to Brian Mayer, a sociology and public health assistant professor leading the workshop.
The objective was not to reproduce data that is already available through the Census, he said, but to produce new and enlightening data that could be used to help local nonprofit organizations and the city government develop strategies to tackle poverty in the community.
The goal from here on out is to find support to continually survey the same households and observe the changes, Mayer said.
Additional questions, with input from nonprofits and community members, would be developed to generate more data that could help those in poverty.
“If we can get the support, maybe we can do more exciting things in the future,” Mayer said.
For Matthew Haslag, a native Tucsonan who wanted to better understand his community through this course, an important takeaway was dismantling the common misconception that people in poverty are lazy and unwilling to work.
“It’s just not true,” Haslag said. Based on his interviews, he learned that most people would rather scrounge to get by than seek help.
Through the experience of knocking on people’s doors and hearing stories of their lives helped him understand that poverty affects the community as a whole.
“Everybody is one big disaster away from being in poverty,” Haslag said.
Connie Lira-Saavedra, a senior double-majoring in Latin American Studies and Mexican American Studies with a focus in human rights, said she interacted with a diverse group of people through this experience.
It appeared there were more part-time jobs available than full-time, which contributes to hardships for households, she said.
Nobody really wants to stay in poverty, she said she learned, but when “life is against them,” the way out isn’t so easy.
“Getting out of poverty is a vicious cycle,” she said.
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, who attended the presentation, said even for those who work to battle poverty, there were things to be learned and applied from the findings of the survey.
In regards to young students participating in this data mining, he said: “It bodes well for our future.”
