I 

grew up in Cincinnati, born in 1962 
at Jewish Hospital. I learned, indi-
rectly, that Jews didn’
t have prob-
lems. Jews didn’
t drink too much … No 
substance abuse. Jews didn’
t beat their 
partners … No domestic 
violence. Jews, of course, 
had the best jobs … No 
unemployment. And 
Jews provided for their 
families … Certainly no 
poverty! While people 
wanted to kill us Jews 
throughout history, in 
the 1960s and ’
70s where 
I grew up, things seemed pretty OK.
After receiving my master’
s in social 
work in 1991 from the University of 
Michigan, my first job was at Jewish 
Family Service (JFS). That’
s when I really 
learned the need for JFS. People had 
real problems; they were really hurt and 
were hurting others. They had trouble 
keeping their jobs, paying their bills …
they were impoverished, in many ways. 
Social problems are equal opportunity 
employers.
A recent Detroit Jewish community 
survey found that respondents didn’
t 
know how to seek help for problems 
they were encountering, including 
financial ones. In response, jhelp was 
created. It wasn’
t rocket science, just a 
portal, a platform, to lessen barriers to 
help our neighbors figure out resources 
to become self-sufficient, pay their bills, 

save for the future and so much more. 
Let me introduce you to some people 
we’
ve assisted through jhelp:
• Sarah is a single woman in her 30s 
with two children. She has an advanced 
degree and temporarily stopped working 
to care for her ill parents.
• Jerry is a 55-year-old single man 
with bipolar disorder who struggles to 
maintain employment.
• Elaine, the breadwinner in her fam-
ily, was diagnosed with a degenerative 
disease that caused her to go legally 
blind.

• Mrs. Schwartz is a Holocaust sur-
vivor who has lived in the same home 
since 1968, has no family in town and 
needs hearing aids.
The stories of Jewish poverty, being 
Jewish, wanting to live Jewishly, but 
being one small problem away from 
homelessness, are rampant, and they are 
not declining. And these stories aren’
t 
just in Brooklyn. They are down the 
street in Oak Park and Southfield and all 
over Detroit. 
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg 
Foundation, which helps fund jhelp, 

recently hosted a national gathering 
focusing on poverty in the Jewish com-
munity. The jhelp model in Detroit was 
offered as a way to assist those with 
pressing financial needs. At a second 
gathering, the annual conference of 
the Network of Jewish Human Service 
Agencies, 400 of us talked about poverty 
in a different way.
While none of us has figured out 
how to end poverty, many know how 
to help people who are impoverished. 
JFS spends hundreds of thousands of 
community dollars a year to help people 
avoid hunger and homelessness, often 
through food vouchers and payments to 
landlords and utility companies. This is 
usually with partner agencies, including 
JVS, Hebrew Free Loan and Yad Ezra. 
It’
s always part of a plan toward self-suf-
ficiency. While some of the problems 
we confront are one-time, others are 
chronic, often inter-generational. It’
s not 
always easy to help, but help is what we 
all must do. 
With Passover upon us, let us all rec-
ognize that there are those in our com-
munity who are still enslaved by poverty 
and recommit to do more to assist them. 
We have to do better. For Sarah. For 
Jerry. For Elaine. And especially for Mrs. 
Schwartz! ■

Perry Ohren is a social worker who is the profes-
sional leader of JFS and the board chair of the 
Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies.

6 April 18 • 2019
jn

essay
 
Poverty Enslaves

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views

Perry Ohren

H O U S E H O L D S

31,500

8,500

2,600

600

47%
2%
8%
54%
27%

THE 2018 DETROIT JEWISH POPULATION STUDY 
INCLUDED INFORMATION ON LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLDS 
AND THOSE LIVING BELOW FEDERAL POVERTY LEVELS.

8% of Detroit area’
s Jewish 
households (2,600) have annual 
incomes below $25,000 before taxes.

54% of those households (1,400) 
comprise people above the age of 65.

2% of Detroit area’
s Jewish 
households (600) fall below the 
2016 Federal poverty levels. 

27% of Detroit area’
s Jewish 
households (8,500) report they are 
barely making ends meet/cannot 
make ends meet financially. 

Of those households, 47% are in the 
35-49 year old age group.

