[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2635-S2637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  BOSTON GLOBE SERIES OF ARTICLES ON POVERTY IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, last week, the Boston Globe carried a 
superb series of articles on poverty in the rural towns of western 
Massachusetts. The series was entitled ``Hidden Massachusetts'' and it 
was written by two Globe reporters--David Armstrong and Ellen O'Brien. 
These two have done an excellent job portraying the impact of job loss 
on both individuals and communities. The towns in this area have been 
devastated by plant closings and layoffs. Factories and mills 
throughout the region have pulled out for warmer climates and cheap 
overseas labor. The jobs which remain are predominantly low paying. 
Salaries in the communities west of Worcester are dramatically lower 
than those in the remainder of the state. With this sense of economic 
hopelessness has come increased levels of crime, violence and abuse.
  These articles are a poignant reminder that the rising economic tide 
has not lifted all boats. Similar stories could be told about 
impoverished communities in every one of our states. For those with 
limited education and outdated employment skills, the economic 
environment is growing increasingly hostile. The macro-economic numbers 
which describe a growing economy conceal a great deal of individual 
pain and dislocation. As a nation, we need to pay much more attention 
to the disturbing growth in income disparity. The working poor are 
becoming poorer, and the middle class are finding it tougher to 
maintain their living standard. We must provide these hard working men 
and women with the tools they need to succeed in the new economy. We 
must provide them with the opportunity to share in the prosperity.
  I call these articles to your attention, and I ask unanimous consent 
that excerpts from them be printed in the Record, because their message 
is a national one. The problems faced by the people of western 
Massachusetts are the same problems which confront us all across 
America. We must make the American dream a reality for more of our 
citizens. These stories are an important reminder that we have not yet 
done so.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Boston Globe, Mar. 9, 1997]

                          Hidden Massachusetts


      behind the scenic landscapes, on the back roads of a rural 
     Massachusetts, is a world of poverty and abuse, violence and 
                              desperation

                 (By David Armstrong and Ellen O'Brien)

       It's dim and stale in the basement lockup at district 
     court, the sickly yellow walls echoing the tales of a 
     thousand petty criminals who have sat here waiting to see the 
     judge upstairs. There are two cells, each with heavy steel 
     bars painted black. There are no windows.
       In the far cell, on the edge of a wooden bench, sits a 
     stocky, babyfaced 11-year-old with straight brown hair that's 
     cut short. He stares at a concrete wall where someone has 
     scratched the words ``White Power.'' In the corner is a 
     shiny, metal toilet welded to the wall.
       He is Chevy Van Pickup--so named because his parents 
     thought it sounded cool. He's here for allegedly mugging a 
     woman outside a package store in Athol, a small town near the 
     New Hampshire border where he lives.
       Chevy already is the youngest child in the custody of the 
     State Department of Youth Services, the agency that oversees 
     the treatment and punishment of kids in trouble.
       His rap sheet would be impressive if he were an adult, 
     never mind a child a decade shy of the legal drinking age.
       Athol police first picked him up when he was 5 years old 
     (his mother can't remember what he did). When Chevy was 7 
     years old, the youngest age at which someone can be charged 
     with a crime in Massachusetts, he was arrested four times--
     once for attacking another student with a trumpet.
       Now confirmed to a facility for young criminals in 
     Lancaster, Chevy spends his free time making cards for his 
     grandfather and trying to earn good behavior points so he can 
     buy presents for his sisters. For the first time, he is 
     learning how to read.
       On the rare occasions his mother visits, Chevy repeatedly 
     asks for hugs and tells her how much he loves her.
       Head west from Boston, past the pricey suburbs, beyond the 
     bustle of Interstate 495, and you'll find some of the 
     loveliest landscapes in New England.
       But it's a cruelly deceiving portrait.
       Behind the pastoral facade live some of the poorest, most 
     violent, most abused, and desperate young people in the 
     state. This is the hidden Massachusetts--the tragic, ugly 
     underside of a state renowned for prestigious universities, 
     famous hospitals, high incomes, and educated residents.
       In many towns and small cities along Route 2, where 
     tourists crowd maple sugar stands, assaults are more 
     widespread than in Boston or Springfield.

[[Page S2636]]

       South of the Quabbin Reservoir, a stone's throw from 
     antique shops and Old Sturbridge Village, there are towns 
     with more high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, and 
     families on food stamps per capita than in Brockton or Lynn.
       And in parts of Berkshire County, where the well-to-do 
     spend summer nights sipping wine on the lawn at Tanglewood, 
     the rate of child abuse is the highest in Massachusetts.
       Police and city officials in Boston, 80 miles from Chevy's 
     house in Athol, brag about a drop in juvenile crime and earn 
     praise nationally for their efforts. It's just part of a 
     steady diet of good news in the Boston area these days: Home 
     sales are up, unemployment down, consumer confidence high.
       But police chiefs in many small towns watch as their crime 
     rates soar. Child protection officials may tout an overall 
     decline in reported child abuse, but in some places out here, 
     it's happening more and more.
       People in these towns talk not of success stories, but of a 
     lost generation growing up without hope on the backroads of 
     Massachusetts.
       ``People in Boston think I am dealing with Mayberry RFD,'' 
     says Southbridge Police Chief Michael Stevens. ``They don't 
     know anything. I've got big-city problems.''


                      Passing time, making trouble

       Before he was sent off to Lancaster, Chevy often roamed the 
     streets of downtown Athol. It wasn't that long ago that Main 
     Street pulsed with the comings and goings of thousands of 
     factory workers. On Thursdays, payday at the two biggest 
     mills, stores stayed open until 9 p.m.
       Today, clothing shops and theaters have given way to human 
     service agencies. One of the remaining industries is the 
     casket manufacturer where Chevy's father worked before he 
     died. The buzz on the street comes not from shoppers, but the 
     ``benchies,'' teenagers who hang out on Main Street benches, 
     doing drugs and harassing passersby.
       Teenagers in towns like Athol complain they are trapped. 
     They say there is nothing to keep them busy and no buses or 
     subways to take them to malls or theaters. When they quit 
     school or graduate, they quickly find out there are few 
     jobs that pay more than $6 an hour.
       For some, making trouble is an easy way to pass the time.
       It was three teenagers from Athol who captured national 
     headlines two years ago when they embarked on a wild spree 
     down the Eastern Seaboard that ended with the shotgun murder 
     of a elderly Florida man in his home.
       In Greenfield, a 22-year-old mildly retarded man was slowly 
     tortured to death in 1995 by four men he considered his 
     friends, police say.
       And last August, two teenage Sturbridge girls were brutally 
     beaten to death with a log, allegedly by an older man who 
     regularly offered to buy beer for young girls in town.
       Many in Athol, a town of 11,588 residents, dismiss the 
     Florida incident as an aberration, pointing out that murders 
     are still rare and crimes committed by strangers an 
     exception. Residents of other rural towns make the same 
     point.
       But clearly, life has changed.
       Once cherished for their simple ethos of hard work, many of 
     these former farming and industrial centers are among the 
     most violent places in the state.
       Of the 30 communities with the highest rates of assault, 
     eight are located along scenic Route 2, from Interstate 495 
     to the New York border.
       Some of the youngest children ordered into state custody in 
     the past two years come from similar towns just the other 
     side of the Quabbin Reservoir.
       They include two 12-year-olds from Ware; two 13-year-olds 
     from Warren and West Brookfield; and a 13-year-old Brookfield 
     boy committed this June for possession of a hypodermic 
     syringe.
       Ask anybody--a teacher, a cop or a social worker--what went 
     wrong and what can be done to fix it, and the answer is 
     always the same: The good jobs left and until they are 
     replaced things will probably get worse.
       ``The lack of an economic future for these kids is 
     unbelievable,'' says Lynne Simonds, who coordinates youth 
     programs in the Central Massachusetts town of Ware. ``Look 
     around: They see what you see. People out of work, hanging on 
     street corners. They choose crime as a way to make a 
     living.''
                                                                    ____


                 [From the Boston Globe, Mar. 11, 1997]

                          Hidden Massachusetts


    without jobs that pay a living wage, little will change for the 
               struggling families of rural massachusetts

                 (By David Armstrong and Ellen O'Brien)

       Although many poor families in Central and Western 
     Massachusetts are on welfare, most struggle to stay off, 
     working at low-paying jobs, creatively juggling their bills, 
     accepting private charity when desperate.
       These are their stories.
       HEATH.--Bob Tanner's day begins shortly after 2 a.m. with a 
     22-mile drive down unforgiving mountain roads to his job 
     sweeping floors and cleaning restrooms at McDonald's.
       The trip is hard enough, but some mornings Tanner climbs 
     into his car and finds his fuel tank empty. The gas thieves, 
     armed with siphons, have hit three times this winter.
       ``It's just hard times,'' his wife, Donna, says matter-of-
     factly, grimly acknowledging that those who steal gas from 
     struggling families are also hurting.
       Bob, who recently turned 44, takes home about $180 a week, 
     after $60 a week is deducted for health insurance. It is the 
     only income for the couple and their two children.
       The commute alone costs $50 a week in gas, and their rent 
     is $100 a week.
       ``Sometimes I'm just worn out,'' Donna says of the constant 
     struggle to pay bills and buy the basics, like food. ``ninety 
     percent of the people out here die from stress.''
       The Tanners live with Donna's mother in a home that sags 
     under the burden of long winters and years of neglect. The 
     only heat comes from a wood stove in the front room. The 
     homemade stove was crafted from a 50-gallon oil drum.
       Wood is the primary or only source of heat in many homes 
     throughout the hill towns near the Vermont and New Hampshire 
     borders. In Heath, 42 percent of the homes are heated by 
     wood, according to the US Census. The state average is 1.5 
     percent. A third of the homes in Heath also lack complete 
     plumbing, the largest percentage in the state.
       Bob cuts as much wood as he can in the spring, but he 
     usually ends up having to buy three cords each winter. In the 
     never-ending battle for survival, it is a major expense.
       Bob has applied for other jobs, at Mayhew Steel down in 
     Shelburne Falls and at several businesses in Greenfield, but 
     he is not optimistic about improving his situation any time 
     soon.
       ``If you don't have a good job now, forget it,'' he says. 
     ``It's getting worse. Every company is moving.''
       The Tanners point to neighboring Colrain, where the largest 
     employer in town, American Fiber & Finishing, has announced 
     it will move to North Carolina next June. The town's second 
     largest employer, Veratec Cotton Bleachery, is also 
     threatening to leave unless it gets economic incentives to 
     stay.
       Neil Stetson, 49-year-old pastor of the Colrain Community 
     Church and a native of Heath, said the scenic hill towns off 
     Route 2 in Western Massachusetts are filled with hard-working 
     people who lose hope with the departure of every decent-
     paying job.
       ``You can't eat the view,'' he says. ``It's a beautiful 
     area. I know that's what tourists see. But it's kind of a 
     facade of beauty. Behind it, there is much pain. With every 
     plant closing, the window of opportunity diminishes.''
       Isolated by geography, families like the Tanners also feel 
     forgotten. They read about the billions of dollars spent on 
     the Big Dig in Boston and find it hard to believe more can't 
     be done to help bring jobs to the western part of the state.
       ``Governor Weld and all of them never come this way,'' Bob 
     says. ``They forget the people here are helping to pay their 
     salaries.''


                      familiar, destructive cycle

       ATHOL John Guyer walks into his small, basement apartment 
     carrying a pillow and sleeping bag. It's 7:30 p.m. and he is 
     tired, sore, and reeking of chicken. He woke up before dawn, 
     sat or slept in a cramped van with no heat for two hours, and 
     worked all day at a farm in Connecticut before making the 
     long return trip home. His hands and arms are a patchwork of 
     red scratch marks left by angry birds.
       The 22-year-old Guyer spends his day moving chickens in and 
     out of cages, giving them shots to inoculate them from 
     disease and slicing the beaks off chicks. Most of the work 
     takes place in stifling hot barns where it is difficult to 
     breathe in the swirl of dust and feathers. During busy times, 
     the grueling work can stretch nonstop over several days and 
     nights.
       For this, John is paid $6 an hour.
       He hates working with the chickens, but has been unable to 
     find anything better. From time to time he quits, only to go 
     back when he needs the money. He is deep in debt and behind 
     on the rent and almost every other bill.
       When asked about the good jobs in the area, John ticks off 
     a few: Installing satellite dishes for as much as $110 a day 
     or building above-ground pools during the summer at $175 a 
     unit. These jobs are hard to get, however, and tend to be 
     seasonal.
       In the not-so-distant past, men like John could find decent 
     paying work at one of the many factories in Athol. They were 
     the kinds of jobs that could support a family and provide a 
     comfortable retirement. But today, only one large factory 
     remains--the Starrett Tool Co., which employs 1,100.
       ``For kids right out of school, there are low-paying jobs 
     out there,'' says Tom Kussy, director of the North Quabbin 
     Chamber of Commerce in Athol. ``We have plenty of those jobs. 
     It is a problem. We will never be the great industrial center 
     we were before.''
       John is typical of a lot of struggling young men in Athol. 
     He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and became a 
     father before he was 20. He and his 18-year-old wife, Sherry, 
     were married in October. They have been together since she 
     became pregnant in middle school with their first son, who is 
     now 3. They have another boy 8 months old.
       The danger for John, say probation officers and police in 
     Athol, is slipping into a familiar cycle of excessive 
     drinking and violence that often follows the frustration of 
     working one lousy job after another or not working at all.
       John has been arrested several times, mostly for minor 
     incidents. In July, he was charged with assaulting Sherry and 
     placed on probation.
       Despite a court order to stop drinking, John hosted his own 
     bachelor party in October. Police found him sitting with 
     friends in

[[Page S2637]]

     the smoke-filled living room of his apartment. In a chair in 
     the corner, Sherry fed their baby a bottle. John admitted 
     drinking a few beers that night and was ordered into alcohol 
     counseling sessions, which he reluctantly attends.
       John recently quit the chicken job again. He is working 20 
     hours a week for $6.50 an hour at a Shell station in Gardner, 
     15 miles away.
       As bad as things are now, some worry it could get worse in 
     Athol. There are whispers about Starrett's moving south, like 
     so many of the other factories that once made this a vibrant 
     industrial center.
       Douglas R. Starrett, the company's CEO, has heard the 
     rumors and is the first to admit Athol would be 
     ``devastated'' if his company left. Nonetheless, he offers no 
     guarantees.
       ``I can't say we will never do anything, but we want to 
     stay here,'' says Starrett, who is 76 and a lifelong 
     resident. ``A lot of people see a gritty mill town, but that 
     is not what I see. It is a great place * * * made on the wood 
     stove.
       One of her children jokes about being able to make 
     ``welfare casserole'' again: macaroni and cheese, a can of 
     tuna fish and cream of mushroom soup.
       Although the family is not on welfare, they subsist 
     entirely on government benefits and the generosity of local 
     charities.
       There is $212 a month in food stamps, $1,135 a month in 
     disability payments, $106 every other week in veterans' 
     benefits, $325 each winter in fuel assistance, and clothes 
     and food baskets form the Clothing Collaborative in nearby 
     Orange. All the children receive free or reduced-priced 
     lunches at school.
       Only one member of the family has health insurance and that 
     is provided by the publicly funded MassHealth plan.
       Cindy worked for a time last year as a store clerk in 
     nearby Winchester, N.H., at $6 an hour, but says she quit 
     because her son was having problems at school.
       The Sheffields are one of thousands of families barely 
     surviving in the hill towns of Central and Western 
     Massachusetts.
       ``People have no idea this town exists,'' Cindy says. ``You 
     say Warwick and they say, `Warwick, Rhode Island?' ''
       Warick sits about five miles north of Route 2 between Athol 
     and Greenfield. It is a town of fewer than 1,000 people with 
     no industry. The only store in town recently went out of 
     business.
       The Sheffields live up a steep, dirt road in a house built 
     by Cindy's husband, Bob, who collects disability payments for 
     mental illness. The interior was never finished, and Cindy 
     doubts they will ever have enough money to cover the plywood 
     floors.
       While the long country roads in Warwick recall another era, 
     the scene inside Cindy's home is decidedly modern and 
     chaotic.
       Her oldest son, Donald, just had a baby with his 15-year-
     old girlfriend; all three are living in the home. There are 
     Cindy's other children, a 10-year-old son and 12-year-old 
     daughter, adding to the crunch are relatives from South 
     Carolina, a family of six that has returned to Massachusetts 
     to look for work and are staying with the Sheffields 
     temporarily.
       Every day begins early, with the children getting ready for 
     school. The oldest are bused to Northfield, a trip that takes 
     an hour each way.
       At 10 a.m., Cindy bundles up the baby and walks her son, 
     Ben Morin, to the elementary school nearly two miles away. 
     Cindy recently bought a car, but has no money to register or 
     insure it. At noon, the three of them make the return trip, 
     either on foot or in the car of a school employee.
       They walk because Ben is not allowed on the school bus and 
     only allowed to attend a special two-hour tutoring session in 
     a room isolated from other students. The arrangement was made 
     after he allegedly threatened to kill his teacher earlier in 
     the year, a charge he and his mother deny.
       There is a telephone in the Sheffield home, but it can't 
     receive incoming calls and only toll-free and collect calls 
     are possible when dialing out.
       A shiny satellite dish stands out among the abandoned cars 
     and furniture in the front yard. Cindy bought the dish after 
     a cable company employee told her there was a ``better chance 
     of seeing Jesus Christ'' than having cable installed in her 
     area.
       ``We got to get something for the kids,'' she says. The 
     Sheffields couldn't keep up the payments, however, and the 
     satellite service was shut off.
       Satellite dishes sprout like weeds in the yards of many of 
     the poorest homes in this part of the state. It's one of the 
     things social workers count on seeing when they visit.
       Ray Burke, head of the westermost office of the state 
     Department of Social Services, says a former social worker 
     who left to take a similar job in North Carolina explained 
     there was only one difference between poor families in the 
     two states.
       In rural Massachusetts, every poor family has a satellite 
     dish, TV and piles of cut wood. In North Carolina, every poor 
     family has a satellite dish, TV and air conditioner.


                     should have stayed on welfare

       Orange.--Tina Jellison works the first shift at Catamount 
     Manufacturing in this old mill town, stuffing plastic ties 
     into boxes as they roll down an assembly line.
       At $6.83 an hour, it's a job that pays her only about $50 a 
     month more than what she received on welfare three years ago. 
     The paycheck is not nearly enough to pay off her debts and 
     keep up with the rent and never-ending bills.
       Tina is realistic about the chances of finding a higher 
     paying job, so she turns to lady luck and the Massachusetts 
     State Lottery for help. She is a self-described scratch 
     ticket addict, looking for a big hit to turn around her life.
       ``I started playing lottery tickets because I was desperate 
     to get out of the hole,'' she says. ``I've never hit on 
     scratch tickets and I've cut back lately.''
       Cutting back means spending $25 instead of $60 on payday 
     for scratch tickets.
       Tina, who lives in a second floor apartment in downtown 
     Athol with her two sons, ages 10 and 12, is not the only one 
     with lottery fever. In a town with one of the state's lowest 
     median incomes, residents spent $5.1 million on instant 
     tickets alone in 1995.
       Tina is struggling to hold onto her job. Her two sons are 
     frequently in trouble with the police and forced to skip 
     school to attend hearings at the Orange courthouse. A single 
     mother, she never misses a court hearing or school meeting. 
     It also means a lot of missed workdays.
       Then there is her car, an aging Chevy Citation with so many 
     problems Tina is thankful for each day it gets her to work.
       ``I should have just stayed on welfare,'' she says.
       But she plans to keep working, in part because new welfare 
     rules will make it difficult to begin collecting again. As 
     for those scratch tickets?
       ``I could get over the hump if I could just get over the 
     scratch tickets,'' she says.

                          ____________________