Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

The causes of poverty, as explored in this book, are complex, and it’s often difficult to disentangle personal failures from systemic and institutional ones. This is more than merely an academic exercise, as public narratives around poverty influence policymakers’ decisions and thus have lasting consequences for poor people trying to access resources. Elliott points out that policymakers have often distinguished between those deemed deserving of aid and those deemed undeserving—implicitly characterizing poverty as a moral condition. Chanel and Supreme’s addictions, their criminal records, and their chronic unemployment are frequently interpreted as evidence that they are responsible for their poverty. These conclusions then become justifications for taking custody of the children and placing them in foster care. Elliott aims to widen the field of view, showing how systemic inequality and the effects of generational poverty contribute to Chanel and Supreme’s circumstances.

Policies can look very different depending on whom they focus on. When welfare focuses on children—who are presumed to be blameless—resources tend to be more plentiful, as they were after the New Deal. In modern times, focus has tended toward poor adults, which has often led to justifications for cuts. Under President Clinton at the federal level, and through Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, this means that policies and programs were revised based on the assumption that overly generous welfare programs lead to dependency. The focus is on welfare as temporary assistance that provides resources just long enough to allow the poor to develop skills that lead to employment and financial independence. This approach often creates barriers to access. Individuals and families in need of help are forced to spend countless hours completing bureaucratic requirements—a time cost that, ironically, interferes with their ability to work and care for children. These policies can also create instability. For instance, several times throughout the book, Dasani’s family qualifies for a temporary rent subsidy program that allows them to leave the shelter system. Once the program expires, the family is forced to re-enter the shelter system.

Explanations for poverty that emphasize individual responsibility have often been used to justify separating children from their families. Historically, this has provided many opportunities for exploitation. One example Elliott provides is of Catholic children separated from their families in the Northeast and sent to Protestant families in the Midwest, where conditions often resembled indentured servitude. In modern times, accusations of neglect are often used to break up families and place children in foster care. In some cases, there are accusations that foster parents only take in children because of the financial benefit involved. In one case, Avianna believes this is true of one of her foster mothers.

A focus on systemic conditions leads to different explanations and potentially to different policies. For Dasani’s family, systemic racism working across generations has often created barriers to the accumulation of wealth. Slavery, Jim Crow, and “redlining” are some of the historical systems and policies that have directly impoverished the family. Dasani’s great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather lived in North Carolina during a time when lynching was common. Her great-grandfather moved to the North after serving with distinction in World War II, but racism prevented him from securing a job despite his skill as a mechanic, and redlining prevented him from buying a home. In more modern times, more stringent sentencing for crack possession and the “school-to-prison pipeline” are among some of the systemic conditions that contribute to disproportionate levels of poverty among Black Americans. An argument focusing on these explanations would tend to conclude that the addictions, criminalization, and unemployment of parents like Chanel and Supreme are products of the systemic bias they experience.