Mobility key to getting, keeping jobs

Lack of transportation is a major barrier for people to gain and keep employment. It’s also one of the biggest obstacles keeping people in poverty. 
As a person who walks pretty much everywhere I go, I understand our county is made up of small, walkable towns. However, they are significantly less walkable if you have three children, one needing to be walked to school and two needing to be walked to daycare, before you can walk to your job.
You walk to the grocery store, walk and pick up your children, walk home, gather up your laundry, walk with your children to the laundromat, then walk home.
If you are really trying to get out of poverty, you need a second job.
You walk the kids to a babysitter and after a day of walking and probably standing on your feet all day at work, you walk to fill out job applications. Then you walk your children home.
If you are lucky enough to land a second job, it means a whole other set of problems.
You might think, maybe people without cars should find a ride.
Well, that works out great if you have someone willing to get to the job on time and is reliable. You still have to walk your kids to school and daycare and then have someone willing to pick you up everyday.
Or maybe people without cars should buy their own car. After all, I did.
Well, poor people pay more for cars. Interest rates are higher. Insurance is more expensive. And a down payment is almost impossible to come up with.
For lots of people, a minimum wage job is not worth the amount of walking they have to do, or that their children have to do to earn $7.50 an hour. A job that pays more is going to be on the farthest edges of town, which means more walking, in the heat, in freezing temperatures, in the rain or snow, in the wee hours of the morning or late at night.
If you think they should just tough it out and do what they have to do to take care of themselves and their children, then park your vehicles, take your keys, bring them to Humanity House and tell us to hold onto them for a week. You and your children walk everywhere that you go. Imagine your elderly parents walking everywhere they go. Everywhere.
What can you do?
If you have an older vehicle just sitting there, and you don’t use it — maybe you don’t really know why you have it.
You think about getting rid of it, but it’s not worth much, so it just sits in your driveway.
How about donating it?
You will get a tax deduction, and you can help put someone on the road out of poverty. If this is something you feel you could do, contact Humanity House. We will keep you updated on families in need of vehicles to keep their jobs.
You can choose who the car goes to, so you can feel good about it.
If you have the ability to change a life, do it. You have nothing to lose and a whole lot of good to gain.