The Perfect Storm

“Our family makes too much money to qualify for help—but not enough to survive.”

Priscilla Sanchez-Silva poignantly shares about her family’s experience on the oh-so-slippery slope that poverty creates for families seeking financial resilience and economic stability. She and her husband chose a simpler life to spend more time with their kids, living on a modest single income. When that job ended, it affected the family in devastating ways and revealed how systems designed to assist those experiencing poverty can actually be unhelpful or even harmful.

“An economist from MIT determined that escaping poverty requires 20 years of good luck and nothing going wrong,” Sanchez-Silva writes. “Our luck did not last nearly that long.”

She shared her story with Echoes magazine not because it’s necessarily unique. Too many families in our community are facing similar realities, having to take similar risks, and making similar sacrifices.

Read Priscilla Sanchez-Silva’s full article in Echoes magazine.

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