Living in Motels Gives Some Poor Time to Recover

The working poor live a transient life that few wish to identify with. Living paycheck to paycheck, life’s surprises can easily dislodge these people from living in an apartment or house, to a life of being vagabonds, moving from one motel to the next. Many suburban areas are now considering legislation that would prohibit people from staying in one motel for extended time frames. Such proposals would put many people out on the street.

I lived this life, not so many years ago. My family and I had lost almost everything, including our dignity. My husband and I and our two children lived in a motel room for three years, with a third child born the last year. Try as we might, we could not save enough money to move into an apartment; the first month, last and a deposit became an elusive game.

Our two older children were in middle school. For them, the time was unbearable. To ease their shame, my husband and I made sure that they were involved in sports and music. At 28 and 25 now, their emotional scars are still healing.

We were fortunate in that we didn’t have to move from motel to motel and that our children were able to attend the same schools near the home we lost through foreclosure. Both our older children graduated from high school, one from college, and both have moved on to homes of their own. My family is blessed because we survived this ordeal.

The local governments considering restrictions on motel stays say they are trying to cut down on the number of drug dealers and prostitutes who are drawn to these kinds of motels. As an ex-motel dweller and as a current homeowner, I would suggest that there are other ways to deal with the lawbreaking clientele.

The bottom line is, there are not enough shelters to accommodate all of the homeless people in our society. Most shelters cannot accommodate the working poor. And most families do not want their children exposed to the many people in shelters who have mental disorders or drug habits.

Why remove a component of society that provides some type of parachute for those struggling at the lower end of our economic system? As a society, we are so concerned about the test scores of students, yet we have no difficulty telling a mother that she has to move from one motel to the next, which would prevent her daughters from staying in one school and developing skills that will eventually keep them from being homeless in the future.

Our society has developed an intolerance that allows us to ignore the poor by thinking, “It’s their own fault” or “If they worked harder.” These words excuse us from our responsibility to another human being.

My family is fortunate. We have been able to escape living on the edge in a motel. Society now accepts us because we are homeowners, because I volunteer time to special organizations and because I look like a valuable member of society. But not too many years ago, I was not considered a valuable member society because I was homeless. Like so many others who are in a similar struggle, all I needed was time, a decent place for my kids to live and to be safe, a small haven so I that could regroup and try to turn my life around.

If municipalities pass laws that prohibit people from staying in motels for extended periods of time, how many people will be inclined to express their frustration by injuring others or themselves? Let us recognize that we are more than our brother’s keeper, that we can actually make a difference in someone’s life if we just understand that poor doesn’t translate into derelict or evil.