Despite efforts of task force, Springfield becomes top metro area for poverty, By Stephen Herzog, March 14, 2015, Springfield News-Leader: “It’s difficult to pinpoint where Misty Middleton’s day begins and ends. She works overnight, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., in the health care industry. ‘I check on a lady every two hours and reposition her,’ she said. ‘I get two or three, maybe four hours of sleep on a good night.’ She doesn’t sleep much at home. When she’s not on the clock, she’s either at nursing school, studying or coordinating meals and school for her five children. It’s a struggle, but she won’t quit, saying: ‘We have to get out of this place.’ She’s specifically talking about the family’s apartment, in a neighborhood with a bad reputation. She could just as easily be referring to the never-ending fight to get out of poverty — a cyclical, tough and sometimes hopeless situation that more and more Springfield families now face…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty