The walk back, when she’s tired and loaded down with groceries, is even tougher. Sometimes she has to make the trip with her kids in tow.

“You can’t tell me this is right?” she said in Spanish. “I know that we don’t have a lot, but we shouldn’t be treated badly because of that.”

In comparison, on Midlothian Turnpike near Chesterfield Towne Center there are two Targets, five major grocery stores — with a sixth in the works — countless restaurants, two movie theaters and retail centers, all within a few miles.

But it’s not only bad living conditions that residents in the east have to contend with.

For Rocha and her neighbors, the only public transportation available is a bus stop at least a mile away across the city line in Richmond, leaving those without cars few options where to find work. New, well-paying jobs in the county such as ones at the Amazon distribution plant are too far for the poor to walk to, and Chesterfield lacks a bus network.

Rocha said the obstacles make it nearly impossible for someone to escape poverty and create a sense of despair in the community. The poor are isolated, ignored and in desperate need of help — they want to get out of their situation but just don’t know how, she said.