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"I wish I had gotten in," she says, then explains she was close to being accepted when a routine physical exam revealed she was pregnant.
Once the babies came, finding work that would accommodate the young family's needs only got harder. Even with those jobs that paid better at Harris Teeter she earned $9 an hour Black found it tough to get by.
There were jobs she liked, jobs she was good at, but always it seemed something got in the way. Working the switchboard at the Renaissance Suites Hotel near the Coliseum paid $8.75 an hour, but without a car it was practically impossible for her to get there. Each morning Black would catch the 5:35am bus and get uptown by 5:50, then catch the 6:15 bus which dropped her off near the coliseum by 7. Then it was a half-mile or so walk to the hotel. At the end of her shift, it was the same thing in reverse. Sometimes a friend would give her cabfare about $17 to save her time getting home.
She took out a loan to go to business college. Then the school went bankrupt, and she was left still owing the money she'd borrowed.
"You finally get stable, but day by day you fall further and further behind."
What "Working Poor" Means
Regardless of how families get that way, there's no doubt that by definition, "working poor" means struggling for and often doing without many of life's essentials. It means not having a washer or dryer, and spending $50 a week on laundry for your family, when you have the cash to pay for it and if you can catch a ride to the laundromat. It means not having money to buy a bottle of aspirin for the headache you get, a week before your twice-a-month payday. It means knowing your children might have to do without eyeglassses and dental care and college.
It also means you can't plan your life, even in the countless small ways many people take for granted. A bus that's late getting you to work can cost you that job. So can a sick child who needs a parent to care for him. The job-hopping that results isn't so much a choice as a product of those circumstances.
The Fight With Despair
Over the years, Black had begun slipping away into a life on the streets. It hurt her mother to watch. Black "had a whole bunch of conflict," Williams remembers. "I think she just gave up. We have never been on the same page at the same time; I had to give her tough love so she could see where her life was going."
It got worse when her dad died.
"Those were bad times," says Black. "I was hanging out with the crowd, trying to fit in." Those were the days of doing drugs and dancing for money. Three times she wound up at the shelter with her kids.
That's where she met Charles Walters, pastor of Remnant Outreach Ministries, a church that fed families at the shelter the first Saturday of each month. He began to minister to her, and helped her find her way back to church, and to an apartment where church and family members paid the deposit. Black moved to Booker Street on Charlotte's west side.
She and her sister, Natasha Black, would pool their welfare money; Temika got $297 a month, Natasha got $236. There were five children between them in the apartment that cost $550 a month.
"I worked at the airport and got paid weekly," but it still wasn't enough to get by, says Temika Black. "I got two months behind."
Late one night in early November 1998, it all became unbearable. She called her mother in Durham. "Mama, I need some help," she finally admitted.
"I'll be there this weekend," her mother replied.
"No I need help right now."
Then Black called the minister she'd met at the shelter.
"Where are you?" he asked. She told him, and he came and got her and drove her to a treatment facility.
She did four days of detox and 20 days of inpatient drug treatment. Her doctor complained when Black wouldn't interact with the other patients. The newly sober 29-year-old replied, "I'm here to get me better."
She came home on Thanksgiving Day, stayed for awhile with some cousins, then went to Hope Haven, a halfway house, where she lived until an affordable apartment became available.