Americans tell a story about poverty that goes something like this: If the poor work hard enough, they won’t be poor anymore.

There is truth in this, of course. America is a nation built on hard work. History teems with tales of self-made men and women, of entrepreneurs and astronauts and presidents who started with little and achieved their dreams.

But there’s mythology in that story, too. Tens of millions of poor Americans spend lifetimes working hard, only to find it isn’t enough.

Kids who grow up in poverty are as much as 75 times more likely to be poor in adulthood than those who don’t. And workers struggling to overcome those odds are rewarded less for their labor than they used to be.

The productivity of American workers has increased 70% since 1979, but their average hourly pay has gone up less than 12%.

Wages aren't the only problem. Predatory lending can trap poor families in a costly cycle of debt. Gentrification can transform neighborhoods for the better while pricing the poor out of their homes. And institutional barriers, from discriminatory housing policies to job restrictions on people who've committed minor crimes, can stand in the way.

Hard work is important. That part of the American story is still true. But for millions living in poverty, the rest of the tale often feels more like fiction.

Today, The Enquirer begins Part 3 of its yearlong series, The Long, Hard Road, telling the stories of people who live, work and struggle along 80 miles in the heart of Greater Cincinnati.

The Road Overview Map Karl Gelles and Spencer Holladay/ USA TODAY Network

This is why the poor stay poor Turn sound on. In the third installment of our yearlong project, The Long, Hard Road, we look at the institutions and inequities that keep the poor from getting ahead. Enquirer visuals staff, Cincinnati Enquirer





CHANGE COMES WITH A COST

Jerome Manigan stands in front of his Avondale home, where he's lived for 68 of his 72 years, and remembers the families who lived here. Once, they owned homes in Cincinnati’s bedrock black community. Today, they are mostly gone.

The family names come easily as Manigan speaks. McIntosh. Williams. Bowen. Hargrove. Rev. Conners. Educators, pianists, politicians, chefs, nurses.

“Great people, good people, helping-hands people, kind people,” he says. “An aspiring neighborhood, a solid middle-class black neighborhood.”

Jerome Madigan, 72, lived in the house behind him on Larona Avenue in Avondale for 68 years. He sold it in 2015 after corporate expansion consumed many of his neighbors' homes. Sam Greene/The Enqurer

He hasn’t been back to the Avenue District neighborhood of Avondale since he sold his two-story, 2,900-square-foot brick house in 2015. Over the years, he's seen his neighborhood give way to a Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden parking lot, a later zoo expansion and, most recently, to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The hospital bought dozens of houses and eventually tore many of them down to make room for an eight-story, $550 million expansion across Erkenbrecher Avenue.

All cities evolve, but most do so by sweeping aside properties that are deemed less valuable than what will replace them. The burden of that loss is not always shared equally.

In Cincinnati, black neighborhoods often have lost the most, from the razing of the black-majority neighborhood of Kenyon-Barr in the 1950s to the homes lost to the hospital expansion here on Manigan's old street.

The eight-story, $550 million expansion of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center looms over homes in the Avenue District of Avondale. Sam Greene/The Enqurer

Those left behind continue to pay a price. A Brookings Institute study in 2018 found that similar homes in majority black neighborhoods in Cincinnati are worth almost 9% less ($10,262 per home on average) than those in white Cincinnati neighborhoods.

Still, Manigan begins with this disclaimer: “I am happy that these sick children are being taken care of. That shows compassion and love. That shows the desire to heal. What disappoints me and many others is that the same expressions of compassion, love and goodwill were not shown to the people of this neighborhood.”

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Besides the stable community that has been lost, says Manigan, many black families lost the wealth provided by generations of home ownership. They could never get this much house for the money anywhere else.

Manigan remembers that, as a child in the '50s, he walked uphill on Rockdale Avenue to Rockdale Academy.

Over here, he says, lived the owner of the biggest black mortician business. Over there is the house where former world heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles lived.

Up ahead, near the steel-and-glass framework of Children's Hospital, Manigan points to the spot where the St. JamesAME Church once stood.

Looking around, he sees the childhood home of former Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Rosa Blackwell and the home of retired school teacher Joel McCray.

(A) Children's Hospital Medical Center critical care expansion is 625,000 square feet and will add 120 beds, new operating rooms and a new emergency department. County property records show 30 houses were lost directly to make room for the expansion across Erkenbrecher Avenue. (B) Children's Northern Avenue parking garage, though technically not in the Avenue District, took away dozens of units of housing. The original 1,400-space garage was expanded to 2,500 as part of the overall expansion plans. (C) Since 1996, 20 units of housing were lost on this block. This is the staging area for the constructing company and contractors working on the current Children's expansion. (D) Zoo parking lots. The lot east of the zoo across Dury Avenue was expanded to take remaining houses on that block.

There’s a story for almost every house and every vacant lot and stretch of land.

Ending the tour, Manigan is back in front of the house his parents bought in 1940. He’s having a difficult time leaving.

“We had a beautiful patch of black-eyed susans right there,” he says, again pointing.

He always thought he’d die in Avondale.

He lives in Northern Kentucky now.

Story by Mark Curnutte



Three medical students Albert Cesare / The Enquirer

In the first-year class at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, 23% of the 185 new students are people of color, the most ever. While gender equality has been achieved in medical education, economic diversity lags. To apply at UC, the fees total $400, though waivers are available. Still, getting in means shouldering close to $200,000 on average in student-loan debt. Economic diversity matters. Because in many ways it plays itself out in how people of color have access to medical care. In Cincinnati, the life expectancy in largely white neighborhoods, for example, is 20 years longer than in black neighborhoods.

First-year med student Adam Butler, center, says, “In addition to being the best physician possible, I want to represent the kids who have the dreams of being a doctor but haven’t really seen one who looks like them.” Halimat Olaniyan, on right, says she can't wait to someday,"tell a sickle-cell patient, I have been here, and I know what you’re going through.” Fernando Blank, who is bilingual, says, “When I was at Ohio State, people would arrive from other places, like Cuba, and I was able to greet them in their language, and I could see the weight was lifted."





NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR EVERYONE

Willa Jones walks through the parking lot toward her apartment at Parkway Towers in Over-the-Rhine.

She’s lived here for the past seven years after being homeless for five, after her husband died. It’s the first place she found after living on the streets, when she had nothing.

Now, she’s being forced to move.

She passes the building maintenance man. “Why’s you putting me out?” she asks.

He looks at her then walks away, leaving unanswered the question Jones and so many of her neighbors are asking.

Willa Jones was homeless before moving to Parkway Towers in Over-the-Rhine. After seven years, she'll soon be forced to leave because a developer is renovating her building. Jeff Dean/The Enquirer

As Jones walks toward her building, she greets almost everyone she sees.

“Hi, Miss Willa,” one man says as he passes.

These are her neighbors or people who work at Findlay Market where she sells Streetvibes, a newspaper offered through the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition.

The coalition helped her get a lawyer three years ago when the battle to delay displacement of those in her apartment house began.

The lawyer held them off for a year, but again, the owners of the building tried to force Jones and her neighbors to move. Jones was told that the apartment house owners wanted to widen the hallways and make the units bigger, turning 100 apartments into 49.

Jones tried to convince them to move everyone to one side of the building and renovate in sections. They told her that would cost too much money.

Finally, they offered the 62-year-old woman a stipend attached to moving expenses, and she said she would take it. Now, because of Jones' success, everyone in the building can choose to have the owners help them move, or they’ll get $800 to cover the costs.

This kind of shifting of populations to establish new housing and new businesses in a languishing neighborhood is referred to as gentrification. It’s been happening in small pockets in most of the nation's largest cities but, in Cincinnati, most noticeably along Vine Street in Over-the-Rhine. The upside is a sparkling new part of town, filled with trendy shops, hot restaurants and hopeful entrepreneurs. The downside is that people who lived there before the renovations are priced out of housing, forced to move.

Gentrification brings benefits to cities, but not for everyone Dan Horn and Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer

Jones now must find a new apartment. She needs to stay near Findlay Market, where she sells her newspapers. She also needs to stay close to the soup kitchens and food banks where she gets most of her food, especially since her food stamp money has been reduced from $200 to $15.

The food bank where Jones used to lunch every day is now open only on weekends. There's not enough demand now because so many of those in need have moved. The medical clinic she used to frequent has been shuttered, too, and she is unsure where she’ll get help now when she needs it.

Even the homeless shelter on the block has been relocated in the name of progress.

Story by Rachel Berry



A closed bank at 3770 Reading Road in Avondale. Bank branches are closing everywhere, but they're closing at a faster pace in poor neighborhoods. Jeff Dean/The Enquirer

About 9 million households in the United States don’t have a checking or savings account. Surveys show many “unbanked” or “underbanked” people don’t trust banks or believe they don’t earn enough to bother setting up an account. But others say they stay away from banks because of high fees or lack of access. While banks have been closing branches everywhere, the losses have been greater in low income neighborhoods, according to S&P Global. The costs of living without a bank account are high. A University of Pennsylvania Wharton School public policy initiative found that using alternative financial resources, such as payday lenders, costs households an additional $108 a month.

Sources: FDIC, The Wharton School and Bloomberg





THE BALLAD OF REGINALD STROUD

Reginald Stroud hears the music and wishes he had never left.

Leaving wasn’t his choice. Everyone knows that. He raised his kids here on Walnut Street, opened a martial arts studio and sold candies for 2 cents apiece at his convenience store.

The rainbow-colored sign out front said, “Anybody’s Dream Variety Store by Reginald.” It was perfect, as far as Stroud was concerned. He never wanted to leave.

Reginald Stroud greets customers from behind the counter of Anybody’s Dream. He moved his store from Over-the-Rhine to Northside when developers bought his building. Amanda Rossmann/ The Enquirer

Five years later, though, here he is. A stranger in his own neighborhood. It’s early August, and Stroud is making his way through the crowd around Washington Park, moving closer to the choir and the song he came to hear.

“Anybody’s Dream Variety Store. Anything you need, anything and more.”

Stroud finds a spot to listen near the choir. The song is about him, about his store, which should be surprising but isn’t.

Anybody’s Dream was the kind of place people visited every day, part convenience store, part community center. Need a bag of chips? A nail clipper? Anybody’s Dream had it. Need advice or a kind word? Stroud had that, too.

He also had jars and jars of 2-cent candy, watermelon and strawberry and cherry, the same kind he used to buy when he was little.

The kids loved the stuff, and Stroud loved having them around. The Army veteran talked about martial arts and discipline, about chasing dreams. He was chasing his, he’d say. Right here on Walnut Street.

“You don’t have to be a millionaire, but you need a dream to walk in there.”

Stroud awoke one day to find a letter taped to his front door. The building had been sold to a developer, and Stroud and his family had to go.

Over-the-Rhine had been changing for more than a decade and now change had come to Anybody’s Dream Variety Store. Investors were buying old row houses and storefronts, fixing them up and charging higher rents.

'Anybody's Dream' convenience store in Northside is known for its two-cent candies, but store owner Reginald Stroud also sells soda, books, clothes and lottery tickets. Amanda Rossmann/ The Enquirer

This was, in many ways, a good thing. But not in all ways. Instead of being part of the renaissance, some people, like Stroud, were being pushed out.

Median income today is $52,000 in the part of Over-the-Rhine that Stroud used to call home – twice what it was in 2010. And African Americans, who made up more than half the population then, now account for about one-third.

“Heard he had to get a new address … Heard he had to get a new address.”

It’s been months since the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra called to tell Stroud it was commissioning a song about him for an event celebrating the community. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but as he stands in the crowd today, taking it all in, he decides it’s a good song.

When the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus finishes the performance, Stroud makes his way out of the crowd and heads home, which is now in Northside. Starting over is expensive and hard, but that’s what he’s doing. His kids are in new schools and he’s teaching martial arts out of his house.

He has a store there, too, with a rainbow-colored sign out front and jars filled with 2-cent candy by the counter.

He calls the place Anybody’s Dream.

Story by Dan Horn







OVERWHELMED

Da’Quan Smith scrolls through his phone, searching for his grades. His mentor sits across from him in a conference room at Taft Information Technology High School, less than a mile from Vine Street.

The junior earned all As so far this year. His GPA is soaring, two points higher than its lowest point when he was a freshman.

Two years ago, Da’Quan witnessed his uncle’s slaying, and afterward the avid football player avoided going outside. His grades plummeted, bottoming out around a 1.50 GPA.

His father was in prison then, and still is today, and his grandmother died not long before he lost his uncle.

Da’Quan Smith practices with his teammates on the Taft High School football team in early September. Jeff Dean/The Enquirer

Da’Quan’s mother, Keva Gray, feared losing her son, too. "He acted like he didn’t have anything to live for. Life was overwhelming.”

Da'Quan and millions of other kids suffer daily from what experts call "adverse childhood experiences," such as violence, hunger, divorce, neglect, drug abuse and poverty.

Studies show those who experience them are about 1.5 times more likely to not graduate high school and about 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed, compared to those who never experience any events.

Da'Quan hopes to do better. He maintains his grades in part to continue playing as a safety and receiver on the high school football team. He’s hoping for a college scholarship.

An after-school study hall helps to keep the grades up, providing the quiet atmosphere he prefers.

Taft lost its first game this year, but Da’Quan is confident his team will bounce back.

“I feel like you can’t give up,” he says. “You can’t give up on anything.”

Story by Max Londberg



Neil Nicks walks uphill on Vine Street on his way home from a job placement center. Because he has cerebral palsy, a short walk takes more than an hour. Cara Owsley/The Enquirer

Neil Nicks walks on his toes, shuffling forward with knees pointed inward. His heels almost stick out the back of his shoes, which don’t have laces but Velcro straps. Nicks has cerebral palsy, a disability that can affect one’s mobility. He uses a cane. He is leaving a job placement facility and walking home in 92 degree heat. Google Maps says Nicks’ walk should take 12 minutes. It takes him more than an hour. Nicks receives public assistance but wishes he didn’t need to. He’d rather be working. But like the majority of people with disabilities in America, he’s not. According to a study done by the University of New Hampshire, only about 36% of working-age Americans with disabilities have jobs.

People with disabilities earn less and are more likely to be poor Michael Nyerges and Dan Horn/The Enquirer





THE PRICE OF BEAUTY (SCHOOL)

In March 2007, police caught Shaunae Jackson smoking marijuana, holding an amount that has since been decriminalized in Cincinnati. The misdemeanor conviction resulted in a $150 fine, but the true punishment came later.

The blemish on her record made it nearly impossible to leave a “dead end” job at a sandwich shop. She nearly landed a job at a local hospital but was turned down after a background check. So she did one of the few things she could: enrolled at Cincinnati’s Empire Beauty School.

Tuition wasn’t cheap. She received a $7,000 grant and covered the remaining $11,000 with a loan.

She hustled for the next year and a half, attending night classes to allow time for her side job and her two young children.

Each month, dozens of people with criminal records find their way to Fresh Start, a free legal clinic offered by the Hamilton County Public Defender's Office. Albert Cesare / The Enquirer

She graduated in 2013 and found work as a stylist. But the 33-year-old College Hill resident remains thousands of dollars in beauty school debt.

"When you try to go the straight and narrow," Jackson said, "it's kind of like all these obstacles that you have to try to fight through."

The cost is so high because, in most states, it takes 12 times as many educational hours to get a cosmetology license as it takes to become certified as an emergency medical technician.

According to the Institute of Justice, aspiring cosmetologists need 1,500 hours to graduate and be licensed in Ohio while EMTs need 150.

In addition to the cost, Jackson had to make sure her misdemeanor record wouldn't run afoul of Ohio's cosmetology licensing rules, which, like those in many states, can consider "moral character" before approving applicants.

Criminal records stifle wages and job opportunities Dan Horn and Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer

In her case, it wasn't an issue. But not everyone is so lucky. Nationwide, nearly 20,000 rules and regulations restrict employment opportunities for people with criminal records.

Jackson, her hair streaked with pink dye, took time away from work on a recent weekday to try to finally remove the decade-old misdemeanor from her record. At a free Hamilton County clinic, about a block from Vine Street, she learned she may qualify. She’s awaiting a date to make her case before a judge.

Her children are older now, preteens, and the family is starting to feel cramped in their current home. Though she’s saved enough to move, landlords are rejecting her applications.

One told her she didn’t pass a background check.

Story by Max Londberg



Hamilton County job and Family Services on Central Parkway provides aid such as food stamps and Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of people every month. Cara Owsley/The Enquirer

The Job and Family Services office on Central Parkway is at the heart of the fight against poverty in Cincinnati. The depth of the problem is on display here every day. About $2.4 billion in state and federal aid passes through the agency each year. If JFS were a publicly traded company, it would be a Fortune 1000 business. If it were a privately held company, it would be the second largest in Greater Cincinnati. More than 100,000 people receive food assistance and 200,000 get Medicaid benefits here every month. Of those, half are children.

Source: Hamilton County Job and Family Services





HELL TO PAY

Nick DiNardo looks over the stack of folders next to his desk and plucks out the one for the single mother he met this spring.

He remembers her walking into his office at the Legal Aid Society in downtown Cincinnati with a grocery bag filled with papers and a story he’d heard at least a hundred times.

DiNardo opens the file and shakes his head, looking over the numbers.

“I hate these guys,” he says.

Nick DiNardo, sitting in his Legal Aid Society office, reviews the file of a woman who paid $3,000 in fees on an $800 loan from a payday lender. Jeff Dean/The Enquirer

The "guys" he’s talking about are payday lenders, though DiNardo often just refers to them as “fraudsters.” They’re the guys who set up shop in strip malls and old convenience stores with neon signs promising FAST CASH and EZ MONEY.

Most payday loan customers are poor, earning about $30,000 a year. Most pay exorbitant fees and interest rates that have run as high as 590%. And most don’t read the fine print, which can be unforgiving.

DiNardo, a lawyer who has fought payday lenders for years, flips through the pages of the single mom’s file. He’d spent hours organizing the receipts and documents she’d carried into his office that first day in the grocery bag.

He found the trouble started when she’d gone to a payday lender in April 2018 for an $800 loan. She was working but needed the money to cover some surprise expenses.

The lender handed her a contract and a pen.

On its face, the deal didn’t sound so bad. For $800, she’d make monthly payments of $222 for four months. She used her car, which she owned free and clear, as collateral.

But there was a catch: At the end of those four months, she found out she owed a lump sum payment of $1,037 in fees. She couldn't afford to pay.

The lender told her not to worry and handed her another contract.

Payday loan storefronts are common in poor neighborhoods because poor people are by far the most likely to use them. Cara Owsley/The Enquirer

This time, she received a new loan to cover the fees from the first loan. After paying $230 for 11 months, she thought she was done. But she wasn’t. The lender said she owed another lump sum of $1,045 in fees.

The lender handed her another contract. She paid $230 a month for two more months before everything fell apart. She was going broke. She couldn’t afford to pay the rent and utilities. She couldn’t buy her kid clothes for school. But she was afraid to stop paying the loan because they might seize her car, which she needed for work.

By this time, she’d paid $3,878 for that original $800 loan.

DiNardo called the lender and said he’d sue if they didn’t stop taking her money. After some haggling, they agreed to settle for what she’d already paid.

DiNardo slips the single mom’s folder back into the stack next to his desk. She got to keep her car, he says, but she lost about $3,000 she couldn’t afford to lose. She was barely making it. The loan almost wiped her out.

The poor use expensive payday loans more than anyone else Michael Nyerges and Dan Horn/The Enquirer

DiNardo hopes a new Ohio law regulating the loans will mean fewer cases like hers in the future, but he’s not sure. While mortgage rates go for 3.5% and car loans hover around 5%, poor people without access to credit will still turn to payday lenders for help.

And when they do, even under the new law, they’ll pay interest rates and fees as high as 60%.

In DiNardo’s world, this is progress.

Story by Dan Horn



Four reasons why the poor stay poor A look at four reasons why poor Americans stay poor. Examining statistics related to wages, gentrification, home ownership and payday loans. Michael Nyerges, Cincinnati Enquirer





THE WAY OUT

Brian Gregg steps out of the elevator and into a lobby overflowing with children, dozens and dozens of them, so many he can barely see the white tile floor beneath all the tiny feet.

“Oh, wow,” he says.

It’s an early August morning, adoption day in Hamilton County Probate Court, and Gregg is here to help manage media coverage. As communications director for Job and Family Services, this is one of his favorite days.

Unlike many kids in his agency’s care, the boys and girls here aren’t sleeping on blue cots with worn stuffed animals, waiting for a social worker to find them a foster home. They aren’t hungry, impoverished or neglected.

They may have started out that way, as thousands do every year in Hamilton County. But today, they’re here in lace dresses and buttoned-down shirts, ready to trade old lives for new ones.

Brian Gregg talks to Moira Weir, the director of Hamilton County Job and Family Services, in his office at the agency’s downtown Cincinnati headquarters. Meg Vogel/The Enquirer

Gregg smiles as he makes his way through the sea of children. He doesn't know these kids, but he knows their stories.

A lifetime ago, his story wasn’t so different from theirs.

Gregg wasn’t adopted, but he understands what it takes to change the course of a life that begins in poverty. Almost half of children who experience extreme poverty end up poor as adults, compared to just 1% of those who don’t grow up poor.

Those are lousy odds. And Gregg knows how hard it is for anyone, child or adult, to beat them without catching a break.

For the kids here today, that break is getting adopted into stable families. For others, it might be a college scholarship or a good job with health insurance.

Gregg's mom, a teenager when he was born, made $2.42 an hour taking care of patients at a state mental institution. His step-father, who stuck around a few years longer than his dad, got a job at a roller bearing mill.

They worked nights and weekends, leaving Gregg at home to make dinner for his younger siblings. He was still in grade school, but he figured it out.

Long Hard Road Town Hall Forum DATE: October 23 TIME: 7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. LOCATION: Schiff Conference Center in Cintas Center at Xavier University The Enquirer is convening a panel of local expert and community leaders to discuss solutions to the region’s poverty challenges and what programs and initiatives are making the most headway.

When the pantry was empty, Gregg walked to the grocery store with food stamps and hunted for bargains. Two-for-one hot dog packs. Mac-n-cheese. Hamburger Helper. Once, the kids ate leftover birthday cake for breakfast every day for a week.

His family moved a lot. The rent would go up or an eviction notice would appear on the door, and his mom would tell everyone to pack.

At 13, Gregg took a summer job going door-to-door selling products made by blind people. Lint brushes. Ironing board covers. No item cost more than $6.95. Gregg got $1 per sale.

A guy in a van picked him up at 7 a.m. and brought him home at 9 p.m. He worked every day but Sunday. Gregg was a friendly kid and a good talker. Some weeks, he brought home as much as $200.

When his mom asked him to help with the rent, she called it a loan. But they both knew better.

Because there was no phone in the house, Gregg gave his high school girlfriend the number to a payphone. “Call me at 10 p.m.,” he’d tell her. Then he’d walk to the booth in the dark and wait for the phone to ring.

Gregg worked hard in school and was a good student, but he didn’t see a future outside his hometown of Massillon, Ohio. He told his mom he was going to be a salesman.

“You’re going to college,” she told him.

Gregg thought she was crazy. They couldn’t afford it, he told her. But once she put the idea in his head, he couldn’t shake it.

His mom had taught him, maybe without knowing it, that being poor meant living day-to-day. It meant working to survive, not necessarily to get ahead. To get out, to really change his life, he needed to make the right choice when it was staring him in the face.

This was his break, he decided. Another might never come. So Gregg applied for every scholarship and loan he could find. He got a Pell Grant. He got three jobs. And he got into college.

Brian Gregg, communications director at Hamilton County Job and Family Services, meets with the agency's executive board. Meg Vogel/The Enquirer

It was a choice that would, years later, lead him to a wife and two kids, to a house in Cincinnati’s suburbs, and to a job with an agency that serves about 200,000 poor families whose stories he knows better than most.

Gregg takes a seat in the back of the courtroom for the adoption proceedings, which are about to begin. He watches as parents sign paperwork and kids fidget in chairs that are too big for them, tugging at skirts and shirt collars.

After a few minutes, the judge walks into the room and says some of the truest words Gregg has ever heard.

“This is a special day.”

Story by Dan Horn

THE NARROW BRIDGE

Nakia Colbert wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. She's not. But she is learning a lot about the law these days.

She’s a single mother living in poverty and filled with fear. The oldest of her four children and her only son, 15, is charged with robbery and aggravated murder in the shooting death of his 15-year-old friend, even though he didn’t pull the trigger. He stands accused of the boy's murder because he was involved in the crime that left him dead.

His mother, in ways small and now terrifyingly large, has learned the hard lesson that it's a narrow bridge out of poverty.

Nakia Colbert and her mother, Jennifer Colbert, left, in 1999. Nakia talked of wanting to get out of poverty. Nakia, now 33, finds herself in a similar situation as her mother as a working single woman. Nakia Colbert and her mother, Jennifer Colbert, left, in 1999. Nakia talked of wanting to get out of poverty. Nakia, now 33, finds herself in a similar situation as her mother as a working single woman. Nakia Colbert and her mother, Jennifer Colbert, left, in 1999. Nakia talked of wanting to get out of poverty. Nakia, now 33, finds herself in a similar situation as her mother as a working single woman. Meg Vogel, Cincinnati Enquirer

Jennifer Colbert, Nakia's mother, had done everything she could to keep the ravages of poverty away from her children. At 31, she completed the Cincinnati Housing Authority’s Kaleidoscope job readiness program. She landed a full-time job, kicked a three-year cocaine and marijuana addiction. As Jennifer turned her life around, the behavior and school performance of her five children improved, too.

Nakia was all smiles in a January 1999 Enquirer front page photo. The self-confident 13-year-old didn’t want to “sit on the couch and wait for the mailman to bring the government check.”

Jennifer had pulled her out of former Porter Middle School near the family’s Lincoln Court apartment and placed her in the Jacob’s Center magnet school in Winton Place. Jennifer wanted Nakia to focus on learning.

Nakia went on to Withrow High School.

Children raised in poverty are far more likely to stay poor as adults. Dan Horn and Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer

That's when the trouble started. “When I thought I knew more than my mom did," Nakia says. "I wanted to be on the streets.” She dropped out, getting pregnant at 18.

With just a GED, she began a series of food-service jobs.

“I had my chance,” Nakia says today.

Nakia, 33, works full-time as a cook in a downtown restaurant. She makes $3 more an hour than she did at a fast-food place in Northside. Yet she and her family still live in public housing and qualify to receive government food and medical assistance.

Her dreams are less ambitious than they were when she was 13.

Within a decade, she says, she'd like to see her family out of public housing.

Story by Mark Curnutte

SCRIMPING

To treat her diabetes, Martice Weaver injects insulin, which requires precise dosage on a schedule to keep her blood sugar level. Without that precision, her health is in jeopardy.

But because the price of the medicine has soared, Weaver rations her insulin. Without her doctor’s guidance, she is using less than she needs. She knows the practice isn’t smart.

Show caption Hide caption The nonprofit Cancer Justice Network sends “navigators” to events such as the weekly meal at Christ Church in Downtown to help poor adults move through... The nonprofit Cancer Justice Network sends “navigators” to events such as the weekly meal at Christ Church in Downtown to help poor adults move through cancer treatment. But navigators also can help arrange for simpler medical needs, such as vision or dental care, or in managing diabetes. Jeff Dean/The Enquirer

On a Tuesday night in early August, Weaver stops into Christ Church downtown for a free dinner and, to her surprise, she is offered some medical help. Sitting with Patricia Youngblood at one table, Weaver describes her dilemma. Youngblood jots notes.

The weekly dinner is an outreach of the Cancer Justice Network, a nonprofit group of paid “navigators” who forge connections to medical care for people without homes or with low incomes.

Steve Sunderland created the Cancer Justice Network four years ago after his wife went through cancer treatment. He remembers the bewilderment, the fear, the confusion even though the couple had resources.

Sunderland soon realized that many people need help for simple, basic care: getting new glasses or teeth fixed.

Weaver, a cook at an Avondale nursing home, explains to Youngblood that she can’t afford her medication. Youngblood says she will work to get Weaver into the clinic at St. Vincent de Paul, which is staffed by medical students at the University of Cincinnati.

“And if there’s a way that they can help you," says Youngblood, "they will."

Weaver is grateful. Maybe she can feel better soon.

Story by Anne Saker







FEW OPTIONS

Tiesha Brown knows her days at the IRS center are limited.

She sits at her desk, talks with her remaining coworkers and thinks about her future.

They’ve known since March that the Covington IRS processing center, which employs 1,800 people, would close Sept. 28. Some of her coworkers will relocate to nearby cities like Florence and Cincinnati. Brown contemplates the offer she got: Move to Utah or Missouri for job without moving expenses.

That might be an option for employees with more resources, but not for her.

Tiesha Brown lost her IRS job when the agency relocated the office out of state without offering to pay workers' moving costs. Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer

Brown has four daughters. She helps her 19-year-old go to school at Northern Kentucky University. She listens to her 11-year-old daughter talk about her new school. Once every three months, she sees her twin 5-year-olds who no longer live with her.

She has decided to stay in the Greater Cincinnati area and step away from the government job that once brought security to her life.

She's entitled to a severance package that’s worth about $4,000. But that won’t come until six weeks after her last day. She tells herself she’ll draw from her savings account until then, that everything will be fine.

Throughout her five years at the center, she went to work even during the toughest moments. She had to take time off once, for a month, to care for an ailing aunt in Georgia. That set her behind on rent, which sent her and her 11-year-old to a homeless shelter for some time.

Brown continued working, though, and moved out of the shelter and into a Section 8 townhouse.

The office is pretty empty now. She does busy work and talks quietly with her coworkers about their plans. Brown plans to leave the center before the final closing day.

She knows she can get a part-time job at Kroger.

Story by Julia Fair







THE LIGHT IS ON

Sidney wakes up to his alarm at 6:30 a.m. He opens his eyes to the light above his fish tank that he insists on leaving on at all times, "because the fish might get lonely or scared at night."

Before leaving for Holy Cross Elementary School in Latonia at 7:20 a.m., the 8-year-old will have done a lot of brushing, washing, cleaning, as well as feeding his fish and his turtle.

Sidney is a someday scientist, a solid listener and an independent little boy.

Shannon Glover holds hands with her 8-year-old son, Sidney, as they cross the street to his school in Latonia. Meg Vogel/The Enquirer

Shannon Glover, 47, of Covington, has spent most of her adult life trying to make sure he struggles less than she did.

Her own mother could not always be there to guide her. Delores Glover struggled to keep bills paid.

Shannon did not always wake to a light in their Covington home. When the lights failed to turn on, the neighbors paid a couple of dollars for meals her mother made on the outdoor grill, anything to pay the bills.

Shannon wants a different life for her son. But that's why she's here at the Lincoln Grant Scholar House in Covington. It is an apartment specifically designed for single parents pursuing higher education. It offers guided activities for children and a study area with computers for adults. It provides all kinds of help to keep its tenants free of burdensome costs, including funding for a broken down car.

Shannon had a brief encounter with college once before but didn't finish. She got pregnant at 19 and moved to Dallas to pursue a dream of culinary school.

Fast-forward several years and add Sidney who was born on Dec. 15, 2010. Shannon moved back to Covington with the baby, promising herself that this child would grow up without experiencing even a trace of poverty.

Energy costs hit poor harder and force tough choices Dan Horn and Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer

"I tell him, ‘We don’t live a rapper’s lifestyle. Life is not defined by how many chains you have. What kind of car you have. Do you have a car? Does it get you where you’re going? Then you are blessed.’ ”

On one recent Friday evening in August, Sidney watched his mother, who is now back in school, up close.

He sways from side to side, eyeing his mom preparing dinners at Lil's Bagels in Covington. Huge, aluminum pans fill with pounds of chicken, and trays are lined with shrimp and veggie skewers.

"What am I doing?" she asks him.

"Working," Sidney says.

Only this cooking extravaganza isn't an emergency meal-making venture to get money for the electric bill.

This time, the lights are already on.

Story by Terry DeMio



Coming in December The Kentucky side of The Road, to Falmouth

The team behind this series Reporting and research: Dan Horn, Carol Motsinger, Keith BieryGolick, Max Londberg, Terry DeMio, Anne Saker, Mark Curnutte, Amber Hunt, Hannah K. Sparling, Rachel Berry, Julia Fair Editing: Amy Wilson, Amanda Rossmann, Cara Owsley Data Editor: Mark Wert Photography and Videography: Kareem Elgazzar, Albert Cesare, Cara Owsley, Amanda Rossmann, Phil Didion, Meg Vogel, Liz Dufour, Cameron Knight, Max Londberg, Jeff Dean Drone Footage: Sam Greene, Albert Cesare, Phil Didion Graphics and illustrations: Mike Nyerges, Dan Horn, Spencer Holladay, Karl Gelles, Janet Loehrke, Maps4News.com Digital production and development: Kyle Omphroy, Chris Amico, Stan Wilson, Ryan Marx, Evan Sundwick, Reid Williams, Craig Johnson, Spencer Holladay Social media, engagement and promotion: Sallee Ann Ruibal, Carol Motsinger, Laura Mazade