Stuck: This is why the poor stay poor – Cincinnati.com

Americans tell a story about poverty that goes something like this: If the poor work hard enough, they wont be poor anymore.

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

But theres mythology in that story, too. Tens of millions of poor Americans spend lifetimes working hard, only to find it isnt enough.

Kids who grow up in poverty are as much as 75 times more likely to be poor in adulthood than those who dont. 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 theonly problem. Predatory lending can trap poor families in a costly cycleof debt. Gentrification can transform neighborhoods for the better while pricing the poor out of their homes. Andinstitutional barriers, from discriminatory housing policies tojob 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 MapKarl 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

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 inCincinnatis bedrock black community. Today, they are mostly gone.

The family names come easilyas 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 hasnt been back to the AvenueDistrict neighborhood of Avondale since he sold histwo-story, 2,900-square-foot brick house in 2015. Over the years, he's seen his neighborhood give way toa Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden parking lot, alater zooexpansion and, most recently,to the Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center. The hospital bought dozens of houses and eventually tore many of them down to make room for aneight-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 onManigan'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 Cincinnatiare worthalmost 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.

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, asa 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 thereis 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 offormer Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Rosa Blackwell and the home ofretired schoolteacherJoel 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.

Theres 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. Hes having a difficult time leaving.

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

He always thought hed die in Avondale.

He lives in Northern Kentucky now.

Three medical studentsAlbert Cesare / The Enquirer

In the first-year class at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, 23% of the 185 newstudents are people of color, the mostever.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 onaverage in student-loan debt. Economic diversity matters. Becausein many waysit 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 havent really seen one who looks like them.Halimat Olamiyan, on right, says she can't wait tosomeday,"tell a sickle-cell patient, I have been here, and I know what youre 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."

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

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

Now, shes being forced to move.

She passes the building maintenance man.Whys 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 towardher 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 womana 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 theyll get $800 to cover the costs.

This kind of shifting of populations to establish new housing and new businesses in a languishing neighborhoodis referred to as gentrification. Its been happening in small pockets in most of the nation's largest cities but, in Cincinnati, most noticeablyalong 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 renovationsare priced out of housing, forced tomove.

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

Jones now mustfind 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 reducedfrom $200 to $15.

The food bank where Jonesused to lunch every day is now open only on weekends. There's not enoughdemand now because so many of those in needhave moved. The medical clinic she used to frequent has been shuttered, too, and she is unsure where shell get help now when she needs it.

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

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 dont have a checking or savings account. Surveys show many unbanked or underbanked people dont trust banks or believe they dont 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 greaterin 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

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

Leaving wasnt his choice. Everyone knows that. He raised his kids here on Walnut Street, opened a martial arts studio and sold candiesfor 2cents apiece at his convenience store.

The rainbow-colored sign out front said, Anybodys 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 Anybodys 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. Its 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.

Anybodys 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 isnt.

Anybodys Dream was the kind of place people visited every day, part convenience store, part community center. Need a bag of chips? A nail clipper? Anybodys 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, hed say. Right here on Walnut Street.

You dont 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 decadeand now change had come to Anybodys 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.

Its 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 wasnt sure what to expect, but as he stands in the crowd today, taking it all in, he decides its a good song.

When the Cincinnati Mens 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 thats what hes doing. His kids are in new schools and hes 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 Anybodys Dream.

DaQuan 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, DaQuan witnessed his uncles slaying, and afterward the avid football player avoided going outside. His grades plummeted, bottoming outaround a 1.50 GPA.

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

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

DaQuans mother, Keva Gray, fearedlosing her son, too. "Heacted like he didnt 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 abuseand 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. Hes 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 DaQuan is confident his team will bounce back.

I feel like you cant give up, he says. You cant give up on anything.

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 dont have laces but Velcro straps. Nicks has cerebral palsy, a disability that can affect ones 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 didnt need to. Hed rather be working. But like the majority of people with disabilities in America, hes 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 poorMichael Nyerges and Dan Horn/The Enquirer

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 Cincinnatis Empire Beauty School.

Tuition wasnt 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."

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Stuck: This is why the poor stay poor - Cincinnati.com