Reform won't end
poverty
Jobs alone can't solve Native
Alaskans' problems
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Bush planes are
the taxis of the Alaska wilderness. For $66 (a strain for
most locals), one can fly 22 miles from Bethel to
Nanupitchuk and back.
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BETHEL,
Alaska &emdash; Like a pinprick on a map, Bethel is nearly
swallowed by its vast surroundings.
Villagers who can afford
it hire bush planes to get to Bethel. Otherwise, they boat
to town in the summer and ride snow machines over the frozen
Kuskokwim River in the winter.
In the fall, the
temperatures are in the high teens to low 20s, and the roads
are covered with ice and sometimes a film of snow. There are
virtually no trees on the tundra and the harsh weather makes
even the nicest homes look dilapidated.
Bethel is replete with
curious distinctions. There are moose and caribou antlers
everywhere &emdash; on homes, businesses and trucks.
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Many
small American towns coalesce around the high school
football team, but in Bethel the symbol of unity is the
basketball team because the ground is frozen year-round and
dog sledding is the only outdoor sport.
There also are no art
galleries, tennis courts, golf courses, movie theaters or
coffee houses. But there is Chinese takeout, served up by a
small group of Koreans who came to Bethel a decade ago
looking for a better life. Today, they run nearly every
restaurant in town.
Because all goods and
materials either must be barged or flown into Bethel,
everything is expensive, and residents who can't afford cars
call one of the town's nine cab companies &emdash; nearly
all run by Albanians &emdash; to get around.
But beyond all of these
oddities, Bethel has an important role in the Alaska
wilderness. It is the place where native Alaskans conduct
business with the government. Villagers also come to Bethel
for medical care, to look for work and to drink.
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WITH MONEY COMES BOOZE
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Lisa
Meyers said she dreads October through December, when the
state issues Alaska Permanent Fund "dividend" checks, money
every Alaskan receives annually from the state's oil wealth,
since the state owns 12.5 percent of the pipeline that runs
through it.
In 1996, the dividend
was $1,130. And for too many native Alaskans, when the money
flows, so does the alcohol.
Bethel closed its bar
and liquor store in the mid-1970s because of endless
alcohol-related deaths among native Alaskans. But people are
allowed to bring alcohol into town, and many from the
villages check into local motels to drink.
Meyers, who owns the
Delta Cottages bed and breakfast with her husband, Tim, said
they turn away many drunken people in the fall. At the
Kuskokwim Inn, there are two room rates: $125 a night for
drunks and $50 for everyone else.
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In Bethel, even
simple repairs, like fixing a broken starter cord on a snow
machine, take on added urgency during the winter months of
reduced daylight.
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Meyers
grew up in Bethel and the nearby village of Stony River,
where her parents, from Indiana and Kentucky, homesteaded.
She said it is difficult to find reliable help among native
Alaskans because of the drinking &emdash; and because those
who are on welfare have different attitudes aboutwork. Many
recipients' lives do not revolve around schedules and
deadlines, making it difficult for them to show up for work
regularly and on time.
A native woman works the
front desk, but Meyers said she had to bring in four
Salvadorans to help her run the bed and breakfast.
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"There
is a place, a need, for welfare," said Meyers, whose voice
lilts with accents of the Yupik language she grew up around.
"I hate to see them cut it back so drastically. But if the
money was taken away, many natives would be forced to go out
and get jobs."
Having said that,
however, Meyers notes that the realities are more complex.
Many natives who live in the villages might want to work in
Bethel, but they cannot afford the high cost of living in
town, she said.
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THE WORKING POOR
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Two Salvadoran
men chop a fishing hole through the ice of the Kuskokwim
River as the early afternoon sun sets over Bethel.
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Working
and still poor. This could end up being the fate of many
natives &emdash; and other rural Americans &emdash; even if
the welfare reforms work, said Gene Summers, a professor of
rural sociology at the University
of Wisconsin
in Madison.
"My great fear is that
welfare reform has caught so much attention that people will
say, 'Hey, we've dealt with poverty.' But that's just not
true," he said.
Welfare and poverty are
separate, but inextricable, issues. Roughly half the
families that are poor and live in America's rural counties
have at least one family member who works &emdash; and still
need welfare to get by, Summers said. For this reason,
welfare is more appropriately called "income maintenance,"
he said.
"Welfare has not been,
is not now and never will be a pathway from poverty," said
Summers, the leader of the Task Force on Persistent Rural
Poverty, a national group of professionals from various
disciplines that studies the issue.
But welfare is essential
if two of the best pathways &emdash; good education and good
jobs &emdash; do not exist, he said.
Summers predicted that
destitution will persist, and even rise, if these do not
accompany welfare reforms.
In the case of the
Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, he said, native Alaskans will
continue to live in poverty even if they are paid for
subsistence hunting and fishing. "The subsistence activity
will be a form of income maintenance, just like welfare, not
a pathway out of poverty."
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