Drexel University

The Center for Hunger-Free Communities

Solutions Based on Science and the Human Experience

Crystal S

Crystal S

“There are some benefits. They provide your children with vaccinations, things that they can’t get in third world countries, things that we take for granted… they can take care of me medically but the rest of me is just dangling out there, hanging on a rope...”

See Crystal featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer series, "A Portrait of Hunger", and in this Philadelphia Inquirer story about threats to full-day kindergarten available here in Philadelphia.

Hear Crystal interviewed on WHYY Radio Times

See Crystal featured on CNN.com

Crystal is 32 with three children ages 14, 10 and 5. She is in school for cosmetology and cares for her three children, all with medical issues. Her son had a stroke at birth, and suffers from cerebral palsy, asthma, acid reflux and a brain cyst. Her oldest daughter has severe scoliosis, and her youngest daughter has congenital hearth disease.

“My everyday life consists of just trying to keep my kids safe and as healthy as possible,” she said. “I have to worry in my neighborhood: Will somebody rob me going to the store? Will somebody try to rape my kids? You just worry about safety and try not to have them tainted too much by living in poverty.”

Crystal said she’s had trouble with caseworkers  who intersect her life. “They assume you don’t work cause you’re lazy,” she said. “I got upset cause some lady at the Social Security office was getting smart with me. Excuse me, but I have worked since I was 14.”

Her favorite photo for Witnesses to Hunger was one of her children eating fresh fruit, which she can only sometimes afford.  She worries that the grinding poverty will never end.

“You have to walk a mile in our shoes to see why most of us are so hostile,” she said. “We don’t not pay our bills for the heck of it. We want to have good credit.  How can you be happy if you know this is all you’ll ever be able to have, no matter what you do to live better?”

Children: 
3 children, aged 5 to 15
Witness Sites: 
Philadelphia
Potential
Potential

Potential

I think all children have potential for anything, to be anything, to be anybody. living in this neighborhood, it strips them of their innocence and their ability to be whatever they want to be, just living in an urban neighborhood.
Halloween
Halloween

Halloween

When you're on a fixed income you gotta get stuff while you can. At Family Dollar they usually have cheap costumes in mid-September. Hers was like $8.50.
Halloween
Waiting
Waiting

Waiting

My daughter said, “I am tired of waiting.”  You go to the doctor’s office, and you wait hours to be seen.  They give you an appointment at eight o’clock.  At twelve o’clock, you might be sitting in that same spot.
Medical care
Medical care

Medical care

There are some benefits. They provide your children with vaccinations, things that they can’t get in third world countries, things that we take for granted… they can take care of me medically but the rest of me is just dangling out there, hanging on a rope...
Making it through the month
Making it through the month

Making it through the month

They give me $376 in Food Stamps. To try to make it through a month you have to put cash to it; there’s no way Food Stamps are gonna make it alone, it’s not gonna work.
Back taxes
Back taxes

Back taxes

That’s a foreclosure notice with the amount on it. After my mom died I thought she was paying taxes, but then I got a notice in the mail that says $3,000… almost $4,000 owed in back taxes. Now, the city has a nice way of saying even though you've been dwelling in this house for however long, we won’t help you.
Gym benefits
Gym benefits

Gym benefits

That is the YMCA--through your medical coverage you can join the Y. They actually will pay for you to get a membership to the Y as a way of reducing more health problems,  a way to keep them from forking out more money if you get overweight and start developing more medical problems. I think it’s a good way to relieve stress, too. You know, you get to go the gym and you get to work out, you just get some free time to clear your head for a couple hours.
Breakfast
Breakfast

Breakfast

With the money food stamps provide, I was able to feed her breakfast that morning.  Without it what would she have eaten? I wanted to show that with the help she was able to eat breakfast that morning.  She had cereal. She had milk. She didn’t have to go without.
Buying clothes
Buying clothes

Buying clothes

Thank God for layaway. You can take and layaway a few pairs of pants, or go on the sales rack and they have $3 shirts, grab the kids a few. Last week, the kids needed jackets and I went to Foreman Mills and I was on the sales rack. I was there for hours trying to find stuff on the sales rack. Two-dollar shirts, three-dollar shirts, four-dollar pair of pants… whatever you can find within your reach. I know the government, they see the people who are on Welfare and they’re wearing Gucci and Prada and Polo. If I've got something like that it must’ve been on the three-dollar rack.
child support
child support

child support

That is my daughter’s father. He’s a part of her life when it’s convenient for him, whenever he feels like, oh, I have a daughter today. Financially, nothing. Even when I had a job they made me waste two days of work, going down there to file for child support... If you want your medical and you wanna get food stamps for the child you have to take the child’s father to court for child support. Now what happens if I was afraid of him? What happens if he beat me up but my child needs medical insurance?
Garage doors
Overgrown yard
Full schedule
Full schedule

Full schedule

They talk about people who are on SSI and Welfare, how they’re on Welfare just because they don’t want anything out of life. People are on it because sometimes they don’t have any other option. I really wanted to show that calendar and say: Employment. Is it really possible? Do you know somebody that’s going to hire me when I need to take all those days off?

This photograph show's the many medical appointments Crystal had scheduled for her children.
Home repairs
Home repairs

Home repairs

Try to work with what you have. So many people live beyond their means. You can't say, "I’m living in this house and it’s a piece of crap and nothing works."  Try to empower yourself to fix something or to do something. There’s things that you can do yourself just to improve the quality of life around you.
Treadmill
Treadmill

Treadmill

I get stressed, I get overworked, bills are piling up, I feel like I’m ready to explode… I just go on my treadmill, reduce the stress. By the time I’m finished I feel a whole lot better. Try to find a constructive way to deal with everyday life without drinking, without smoking, without fighting, without cussing, beating on the kids because you're just at your wit’s end. Find something constructive and positive for yourself to do.
Yard
Weatherizing the windows
Weatherizing the windows

Weatherizing the windows

I was caulking the windows so this picture shows how it looked before it started, like the big cracks on the seams of the windows and then once I filled them in.  Trying to weatherize the house, getting it ready for winter to reduce  my gas bill.
Samira happy
Samira happy

Samira happy

She said, mom, can you take a picture? I feel happy right now. I want people to know that we’re like everybody else, the same needs, the same wants… we want the same chances, just like everybody else.
Peace
Peace

Peace

He was saying peace to everybody. In this picture, from my son, he just wants to be a normal kid… same wants and needs. Because my son, he’s developmentally delayed from his medical problems.  He just wants to fit in. He just wants to be normal like everybody else... I figure you've gotta be gentle and you've gotta be nurturing, because the world isn’t … it’s not gentle, it’s not kind, it’s not easygoing at all. It’s hard, it’s tough, and it’ll knock you down every chance it gets, so I shelter them with as much love as I can right now.