Poverty Economy

Our neighborhood has such poverty that when some families hang out their laundry to dry the towels are so worn out they look like gauze. It is heartbreaking. Some neighbors dry their clothes on their porches if they have them, if not they hang their T-shirts and jeans pinched between their apartment storm windows, or drape wet clothes over fire escapes or chain link fences. A few neighbors regularly raid the big blue recycle bins. You hear the clatter of bottles as they're searching for refundable bottles. They wheel hijacked supermarket shopping-carts full of empty bottles and cans collected from all of the neighborhood apartments to get a a nickel-a-bottle return at the Stop and Shop down the street in Blackstone, Massachusetts.