Inside Report for October 20, 2009

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 20, 2009 - Page: 9B

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Just days after a story ran in The Advocate about how health problems drove her to poverty, Angelia Foster’s phone was ringing with people calling to address her needs.

Russell Davis, of Accu-Temp air conditioning, replaced Foster’s broken furnace with a new one. Aimee Bajoie-Henderson and her husband, Terrance, of Triple T Lawn Service, brought their tree trimmers and cut dead limbs hanging over Foster’s home and driveway.

The services these two Baton Rouge businesses gave away are valued at about $3,400.

“I was surprised,” Foster said. “I didn’t know the response was going to be so quick.”

DeLisa Johnson, who also was featured in the Sept. 27 story, said people are helping to straighten out her situation with the federal disaster housing program. An evacuee of Hurricane Katrina, Johnson said she was unfairly cut from the program earlier this year.

National media outlets are interested in her story and she is planning to write a book about her experiences.

It is inspiring how quickly people rally to assist strangers in need and how that hope, in turn, changes lives.

Yet Foster, Johnson and Ruby Smith are only three of the more than 740,000 people in Louisiana who live in poverty.

“When a concrete need is put in front of people, a concrete task that they can do, people are likely to respond,” said Pam Monroe, who directs a network of businesses, nonprofits and researchers called the Poverty Initiative.

It also helps that the women featured in the story are sympathetic, Monroe said.

They are considered the “deserving poor” because they came into poverty by no fault of their own, she said.

People think about the poor, in aggregate, negatively, she said.

And there are some people who will defeat themselves and any attempt by others to help them get out of poverty, Monroe said.