The Roanoker - May/June 2021 - 32

We are humans. Who want to work.
And eat. And feel safe. And raise our
children. We have dreams. We make
sacrifices. We have good days. And bad.
Amanda Nastiuk, executive director at
the West End Center for Youth, sees every
day how one moment can rob a future,
how one decision can chart a course. She,
herself, does not earn enough to lift her
family out of the United Way's Asset
Limited, Income Constrained, Employed
(ALICE) designation.
" It's kind of crazy to think that I could
be in this position professionally and
that position financially, " she says. " I did
everything right. I know people love to
judge. But you can do everything right and
it might not matter. "
On the following pages, you'll read the
stories of six Roanokers. Each embodies
a statistic measuring poverty. Though the
numbers can show a truth, chart a trend,
they can never tell the whats and the whys
and the hows.
We'll leave that to the women and
men trying their hardest to create a life of
purpose and happiness.

The number of
people below
the poverty line
increased by 8
million between
May and October
2020 -Columbia
University study

healthcare, her childcare. Gone was the life
she'd built over the last four years, since she
moved into her rental house in Southeast
Roanoke and increased her earnings enough
to leave behind the food stamps and
housing vouchers that had been a lifeline
when her kids were young.
From March until June, she collected
unemployment and wondered how she
would feed her kids and fell behind on rent,
utilities, car payments.
" It was a very, very scary, very trying
time, " Shepherd says. " There's times, I can
say, I was in the bathroom, crying, just
because I did not know what was going to
happen. "
When Tuco's called in June, Shepherd
jumped at the chance for a job, though
with reduced hours and tips she earned a
quarter of what she could have collected on
unemployment.
" All I wanted to do was go back to work, "
she says.
Even with a job, Shepherd is on shaky
ground.
Her three older kids returned to the
West End Center for Youth at the end
of August. They attend virtual school
from there and take part in after-school
programming offered for kids from pre-K
through high school. Federal food aid has
helped with groceries. The three rounds of
stimulus checks have paid what Shepherd
owed on lapsed bills. But there's no money
in the bank and Shepherd won't be eligible
for healthcare again until she's been back at
work a full year.

" Sometimes I still have to take money
from one bill and pay another bill, " she says.
She's hopeful that warmer weather
and vaccinations will entice people to fill
restaurant tables and bar stools.
But fear shadows her every day.
" I could not take us going backwards, "
she says, emphatically. " We end up shutting
down again? Oh, yeah. We won't make it. "

61% of Americans
say they could
not pay a $1,000
unexpected expense
from savings -
Bankrate's January
2021 Financial
Security Index
The cards were stacked against Charlene
Johnson early in life.
She was on her own at 16, with her
first baby on the way. She had two more
children over the next few years. While she
always worked-often two jobs at a time-
college wasn't an option and stability was
hard to come by.
Still, she put one foot in front of the other
and gained the experience needed to land a
restaurant manager position-with health
insurance and salary enough to afford rent
and a car payment and a cell phone plan.
But just as she finished job training

Amanda Shepherd and daughter, Sophia

Amanda Shepherd knows the meaning
of hard work.
At the start of 2019, she was juggling
three jobs with raising four kids. She
made it happen by relying on a budget
and a schedule and a support network.
By the end of that year, her future looked
promising: She'd been promoted to
assistant manager and bartender at Tuco's
Taqueria Garaje, in downtown Roanoke.
By early March 2020, she felt secure
enough to quit her other two jobs.
Then it all came crashing down.
As stay-at-home orders canceled
everything, Shepherd, 33, lost her job, her

32 MAY/JUNE 2021

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