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LIVING ON THE POVERTY LINE
A NORTHWEST HERALD SERIES
An estimated 23,277 people in McHenry County live in poverty – a 41 percent jump over five years earlier. Half of the poor in the Chicago area are now suburban compared with a third in 1990.
CL will consider boosting tax levy By JEFF ENGELHARDT jengelhardt@shawmedia.com CRYSTAL LAKE – The Crystal Lake City Council will consider an 8.3 percent tax levy increase at Tuesday’s meeting. The roughly $1.2 million increase in proposed tax revenue would go to cover pensions, firefighter salaries and benefits, library services and crossing guard services. Unlike in many municipalities, no property tax revenue goes toward the general fund. The increase – projected to boost property tax revenue from $14.7 million to about $16 million – is a change of pace for a City Council that has approved annual increases between $300,00 and $400,000 most years and even a roughly $300,000 decrease between 2009 and 2010. The largest bump comes in the fire rescue fund. The proposal calls for a $494,222 increase to move the fund’s budget from $5.6 million to $6.1 million. The increase is needed to offset costs related to the newest collective bargaining agreement, which awarded a 6 percent increase in wages over the life of the contract from
See TAX LEVY, page A8 Kyle Grillot - kgrillot@shawmedia.com
Lisa Clark makes dinner while talking about homework with her children, Chloe, 10, (left) Julianne, 5, and Madelyn, 20, in their Richmond home. Clark is a single mom with six kids working as a teaching assistant at a day care. She has gone through a foreclosure, a divorce and stage 4 ovarian cancer, leaving her in an uncertain financial situation.
LOST JOBS, LOW PAY AND ILLNESS PUT MANY IN SHAKY FINANCIAL SITUATIONS By EMILY COLEMAN • ecoleman@shawmedia.com ICHMOND – Lisa Clark will be losing her house in June. The $10 an hour the Richmond resident makes as a full-time teacher’s assistant in a day care isn’t enough to cover the mortgage, property taxes, car insurance, fuel for the car and almost $300 a month for heat and electricity, even with the aid she receives from the state. It doesn’t help that Clark, 45, was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer in January and was out of work for five months getting treatment. She goes back for another blood test in June. But the other problem has been a series of minor disasters that chip away at any earnings she might have saved: the washer and dryer breaking down or a broken brake line on a car. There was the pipe that
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INSIDE: Lisa Clark opens up in a photo essay about living on the poverty line. Page A9 ONLINE: To view video interviews related to the series, visit NWHerald.com.
Editor’s Note: This series seeks to examine the impact in McHenry County of poverty’s transition from a traditionally urban problem to a more common suburban issue.
Mandela makes final journey home By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
THE SERIES DAY-BY-DAY
burst two Octobers ago and flooded the basement with 10 inches of water, ruining baby pictures and family mementos. “I feel like I’m spinning plates in one section, and then something falls off. Then I run and fix that plate, and then I’ve got to run back here and fix that plate,” Clark said, sitting on the couch in her living room. Photos of her six kids – the oldest is 27 and the youngest is five – line the top of a cabinet. Clark is among the estimated 23,277 people living in poverty in McHenry County, a 2012 estimate that jumped 41 percent over five years earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The statewide number climbed 23 percent to nearly 1.8 million in 2012 over
See FINANCES, page A9
ABOUT THIS SERIES
TODAY Living on minimum wage
MONDAY The struggle with finding affordable housing and transportation
TUESDAY The steady increase in the use of food stamps and the number of school children on a free/reduced lunch program
WEDNESDAY A look at how overburdened local social service agencies have become
The Associated Press QUNU, South Africa – Nelson Mandela came home Saturday. A hearse carrying Mandela’s body drove into his hometown in rural South Africa ahead of burial Sunday, returning the country’s peacemaker to the place where he had always wanted to die. It was here in Qunu that Mandela roamed the hills and tended livestock as a youth, absorbing lessons about discipline and consensus from traditional chiefs. From here he embarked on a journey – the “long walk to freedom” as he put it – that thrust him to the forefront of black South Africans’ struggle for equal rights that resonated around the world. As motorcyclists in uniform and armored personnel carriers escorted the vehicle carrying Mandela’s casket to the
See MANDELA, page A8
LOCALLY SPEAKING
WOODSTOCK
CRISIS RECOVERY CLASSES AHEAD A class next month at the McHenry County PADS day center aims to equip those struggling with mental illness with an action plan should a crisis arise. The program highlights Wellness Recovery Action Planning, which is recognized as an evidencebased practice by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. For more, see page B1.
Kyle Grillot – kgrillot@shawmedia.com
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CRYSTAL LAKE: The global health care products maker Covidien will add 100 jobs at local facility. Business, D1
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