美国国家公共电台 NPR Working While Homeless: A Tough Job For Thousands Of Californians

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Now to California, where thousands of people wake up in cars, tents and shelters and then get ready for work. The state is facing a huge shortage¹ of affordable² housing, and that means even full-time³ workers can find themselves falling into homelessness. David Wagner reports from member station KPCC.

DAVID WAGNER, BYLINE⁴: Nereida is wrapping up a shift at her job in an LA optometry shop.

NEREIDA: I am calling to confirm your appointment with us for tomorrow.

WAGNER: At the end of each shift, six days a week, she turns off the display lights in the eyeglass cases. She sets the alarm, locks the doors and walks out to her car. And some weeks, that's where she stays.

NEREIDA: There's been several times where I just slept in my car. I parked close to the gym because that's where I get ready in the mornings.

WAGNER: On any given night, LA County has close to 16,000 people living in vehicles. Nereida came to LA with her two young daughters almost a year ago. We're only using her first name because she hasn't told her boss she doesn't have a stable place to live.

NEREIDA: I don't want him to have a different view of me. And to think that I'm homeless is going to affect my work life.

WAGNER: Nereida is staying with a friend for now. Someone has always been willing to let her kids spend the night, but she never thought finding a place of her own would be this hard. She makes $17 an hour, but the area's median rent for a two-bedroom apartment would claim more than half her income.

NEREIDA: You have to really focus on work when you're at work and try to put on a face that everything's OK. Once you're done, you break down because you don't have a place to go.

WAGNER: The numbers on the working homeless in California are only estimates from annual city surveys. In LA, about 8 percent of adults who are homeless say they're doing some kind of work. But 27 percent of those with children, like Nereida, say they're working part or full time. Employees have protections on the job when it comes to things like their race and gender⁵, but...

JESSICA BARTHOLOW: There are no laws in California that protect you from being discriminated⁶ against based on your housing status.

WAGNER: Jessica Bartholow with the Western Center on Law and Poverty pushed for a 2012 California bill that would have changed that. It was modeled on a Rhode Island law, the first to give homeless workers these kinds of rights. But the bill died in committee. Bartholow thinks California should reconsider it.

BARTHOLOW: If we know that income is one of the best ways out of poverty, why wouldn't it be a best policy practice to make sure that people who are homeless and who are working are not at risk of losing their jobs or having reduced hours?

WAGNER: Some employers do try to help. The Northeast Valley Health Corporation provides services to people who are low-income or homeless. There have been a few times when their own workers, the very people helping⁷ the homeless, have themselves lost their homes. CEO Kim Wyard says their connections to LA's homeless support system have been a huge help.

KIM WYARD: I think that it may take a little bit of digging to put a homeless resource list together for your staff, but those resources are there.

WAGNER: When Nereida, the optometry shop worker, has reached out to those housing resources, she says the reaction hasn't always been helpful.

NEREIDA: Do I have to look like, you know, ripped⁸ clothes, dirty clothes? Like, I don't know what they expect me to look like. I have a job, so I can't come to work unpresentable or unprofessional.

WAGNER: Nereida's biggest fear is that she'll end up back in her car but this time, with her kids in the back seat. For NPR News, I'm David Wagner in Los Angeles.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This story was part of the statewide California Dream collaboration⁹.

1 shortage   

n.缺少，缺乏，不足

参考例句：

• The city is suffering a desperate shortage of water.这个城市严重缺水。
• The heart of the problem is a shortage of funds.问题的关键是缺乏经费。

2 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

3 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

6 discriminated   

分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待

参考例句：

• His great size discriminated him from his followers. 他的宽广身材使他不同于他的部下。
• Should be a person that has second liver virus discriminated against? 一个患有乙肝病毒的人是不是就应该被人歧视？

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

8 ripped   

adj. <美俚>喝醉的，受毒品麻醉的 动词rip的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He had ripped up the carpet, leaving only the bare boards. 他用力扯去了地毯，只剩下裸露的地板。
• I ripped my jeans on the fence. 我的牛仔裤在栅栏上划破了。

9 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。