Inver Hills College to Hold Poverty Simulation

The economy may be looking up a bit lately, but since the downturn began in 2007, U.S. poverty levels have risen significantly.

Still, when Melissa Bunde, a sociology professor at Inver Hills Community College, tells her students that 15.1 percent of Americans live below the poverty line of $22,350 for a family of four, she often draws blank stares. That why, for the third year in a row, Bunde is organizing a Community Action Poverty Simulation at Inver Hills.

“The poverty simulation experience is designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive from month to month,” Bunde explained in an Inver Hills press release.“It is a simulation, not a game. The object is to sensitize participants to the realities faced by low-income people.”

The event will take place on March 21 from noon to 2:30 p.m. in the gym at Inver Hills Community College.

Using a simulation kit purchased from the Missouri Association for Community Action, Bunde arranges tables and chairs in the gym to hold 72 students who role play the lives of low-income families. An additional 18 staff and faculty members volunteer to assist with community roles, such as police officer, utility collector, pawnbroker, grocer, social service caseworkers, child care worker, school teacher and a faith-based agency staffer. The task of the “families” is to provide for basic necessities and shelter during the course of a month, divided into four 20-minute “weeks.”

Afterwards, Bunde often hears students say that they did not realize the time it takes to go from agency to agency and that sometimes people are turned away or need to return with different documents.

“My main goal for the students is that they have a realistic view of the public economic system and how difficult it is to get out of a poverty situation,” Bunde said.