Inver Hills Community College to Hold Poverty Simulation

In Melissa Bunde's sociology classes at Inver Hills Community College poverty comes up a lot. However, she has noticed that telling her students about the latest poverty rate numbers -- 15.1 percent with the poverty line at $22,350 for a family of four -- sometimes fails to drive home exactly what it means to be living in poverty. That is 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. "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, 2500 East 80th Street, Inver Grove Heights. The poverty simulation is held during the annual faculty-student conference, which is called "Flourishing in a World of Disasters" this year and will be held on March 21 and 22.

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. She also hopes they leave the poverty simulation with more compassion toward people in poverty and more awareness of the services that are available to assist them.