| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| American Dream Still Alive and Well |
| 2008-02-24 |
| H/T: David's Medienkritik Homeless: Can you build a life from $25? In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings. Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else. A former college athlete with a bachelor's degree, Mr. Shepard had left a comfortable life with supportive parents in Raleigh, N.C. Now he was an outsider on the wrong side of the tracks in CharlesÂton, S.C. But Shepard's descent into poverty in the summer of 2006 was no accident. Shortly after graduating from Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., he intentionally left his parents' home to test the vivacity of the American Dream. His goal: to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year. To make his quest even more challenging, he decided not to use any of his previous contacts or mention his education. During his first 70 days in Charleston, Shepard lived in a shelter and received food stamps. He also made new friends, finding work as a day laborer, which led to a steady job with a moving company. Ten months into the experiment, he decided to quit after learning of an illness in his family. But by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000. The effort, he says, was inspired after reading "Nickel and Dimed," in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty. More at the link. |
| Posted by:Chuck |
| #6 In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings. Guy probably could have pulled all this simply via welfare. Reminds me of an incident of a young Asian immigrant hopping out of an expensive car and being confronted by an older American minority. The old man says "How many years have you been in this country? How can you afford a car like that?" The Asian replies "I've been in the country two years -- how many years have you been here?" The old man replies I've in this country my entire life" The Asian asks "And how can you not have a car like mine?" |
| Posted by: regular joe 2008-02-24 13:14 |
| #5 I'd drop that lemon, if you still can, bjk. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-02-24 10:51 |
| #4 By the way, I've read Nickel and Dimed for an english class so I'm not just talking out my ass. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-02-24 10:39 |
| #3 You both may be off track, its initiative and drive that made the difference in his case. He had a goal, she didn't(a leftard one maybe), he WANTED to succeed, she, for the purposes of her book, didn't. He could probably go anywhere and reproduce the same effect, sadly, so could she. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-02-24 10:38 |
| #2 Barbara Ehrenreich=socialist un-American. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2008-02-24 09:46 |
| #1 Its called living with in your means |
| Posted by: Cheadderhead 2008-02-24 09:13 |